PROPHGCIGS RELATING TO 
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Prophecies Relating To 
The Time of the End 



BY 



WILLIAM A. BOSWORTH 
4 




BOSTON 

THE GORHAM PRESS 

MCMXVIII 



Copyright, 1918, by William A. Bosworth 



All Rights Reserved 



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MADE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 



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TO 
THE VETERAN SOLDIERS OF THE CROSS 

THE HONORABLY RETIRED MINISTERS OF ALL 

THE CHURCHES, WITH LOVING GREETINGS 

FROM YOUR BROTHER AND COMPANION 

IN THE KINGDOM AND PATIENCE 

OF JESUS CHRIST 



INTRODUCTORY 

THIS little work is not a Commentary on the 
Apocalypse, but rather an attempt to assist the 
reader to 'Understand the Visions' of the cen- 
tral and major portion of that remarkable book ; 
and it follows the method of the commentary in 
dealing with particular words and phrases only 
so far as may be necessary to that end. The Book 
of the Revelation in spite of its strange enigmas 
and its Oriental symbolism is for the present gen- 
eration the most up-to-date book ever written. It 
brings down the world's history to the latest minute. 
For example I read this very day — September 25 — 
of events transpiring in Russia that are foreshadowed 
in a prediction which I was carefully studying but 
a few days ago. And then from the present mo- 
ment it conducts us onward, through many bewil- 
dering mazes, and often through storm and stress 
and night to the glorious end — the Golden Age of 
which prophets have dreamed, and poets have sung, 
when War shall be no more, and earth shall have 
become the Paradise of God. 

The phrase employed in the title of this work, 
"The Time of the End" designates the closing pe- 
riod of the present Age or Dispensation, extending 
from the outbreak of the great war to the Mil- 
lenium. The Prophecies referring to this period 
are principally contained in the following Scrip- 
tures : 

Revelation 5:1 to 20:6. Matthew, chapters 24 
and 25 with corresponding passages in Mark and 
Luke. 2d Thessalonians 2:1-12, the Second Psalm, 
5 



Introductory 



Daniel 2:44, 45, Daniel 12 and Zechariah 14 with 
other scattered predictions in the Old Testament 
and the New. This Period of human history, 
called by Daniel the "Time of the End" may be 
divided into Five more or less distinct Epochs or 
Minor Periods. The first is that of the great 
World War. Second the Period of Reconstruction 
during which will occur the Sealing of the Saints 
and a great Missionary and Evangelistic Campaign. 
Third the Fall of Babylon and the disturbances 
connected therewith. Fourth the Reign of Anti- 
christ, culminating in the organization and over- 
throw of the Seventh Empire, and Fifth and last 
the period which extends from the Second Coming 
of Christ to the final and complete establishment 
of His Kingdom. 

It is my conviction that the time has now come 
for a new Interpretation of the Book of the Reva- 
lation. Six of the Seven Seals have been opened, 
and Six of the Seven Trumpeters have blown. 
Many things written in this Book are now perfectly 
plain, which but a few years ago it was impossible 
for any human mind to understand. These recent 
fulfillments and the clues they afford furnish a 
new basis for the work of the expositor. For my- 
self I admit that much of my work is tentative. I 
only claim to be a pioneer in this new field of pro- 
phetic interpretation. I hope to find the trail and 
blaze the way for others who will follow, until the 
Sealed Book opened in Heaven centuries ago shall 
be fully re-opened upon the earth, so that all may 
read and understand. 



CONTENTS 

Chap. I The Seven Seals 1 1 

Chap. II The Seven Trumpets 20 

Chap. Ill The Crux Interpretorum 29 

Chap. IV The Prophetic Dates 34 

Chap. V The United States 43 

Chap. VI The Evening Light 53 

Chap. VII The Destroyers 66 

Chap. VIII The Seven Vials 75 

Chap. IX The Fall of Babylon 80 

Chap. X The Reign of Antichrist 95 

Chap. XI The Bridegroom 113 

Chap. XII The Seventh Empire 127 

Chap. XIII The Glorious Appearing 132 

Chap. XIV Armageddon 136 

Chap. XV Judgments 144 

Chap. XVI The First Resurrection 156 

7 



PROPHECIES RELATING TO THE TIME 
OF THE END 



Prophecies Relating to the 
Time of the End 



CHAPTER I 

THE SEVEN SEALS 

Or the War Program of Jesus Christ 

" \T7"HY do the nations rage, and the peoples 
VV devise a vain thing? The kings of the 
earth set themselves and the rulers take 
counsel together against Jehovah and against His 
Anointed saying Let us break their bands asunder 
and cast away their cords from us. He that sit- 
teth in the heavens shall laugh ; Jehovah shall have 
them in derision. Then shall He speak to them in 
His wrath and vex them in His sore displeasure. 
Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. 
I will declare the decree. Jehovah hath said 
unto me Thou art my Son; this day have I begot- 
ten thee. Ask of me and I will give thee the na- 
tions for thy inheritance; the uttermost parts of 
the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt rule them 
with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces 
like a potter's vessel. Be wise therefore now ye 
kings, be instructed ye judges of the earth — kiss 
the Son lest He be angry with you and ye perish 
from the way for His wrath will soon be kindled." 
— The Second Psalm. 

II 



12 The Time of the End 

"And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the 
seven seals; and I heard one of the living creatures 
saying as with a voice of thunder, Come! And I 
looked and beheld a White Horse and He that sat 
thereon had a Bow; and a Crown was given Him; 
and He went forth conquering and to conquer." — 
Revelation 6:1, 2. 

Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace. Christianity 
itself is His great Peace Program. When He was 
born the angels sang of Peace on earth, and when 
His kingdom shall come, there shall be "Abundance 
of Peace so long as the moon endureth." In this 
we all agree. But a great War is now upon us — a 
war that is of far greater significance in relation to 
the final Peace than any or perhaps all former wars. 
We are not to suppose that Jesus Christ is taking 
no part in this great war, or that He has no Pro- 
gram or plan to carry out while it is in progress. 
That Program is indicated in a general way in the 
Second Psalm and it is outlined more definitely and 
fully in the Sixth Chapter of the Book of the Rev- 
elation containing the Visions of Six of the Seven 
Seals. The War Program of Jesus Christ includes 
the following particulars: 

I. His first move was to obtain complete and def- 
inite Information about the War, many centuries 
before it came, for it had all been mapped out so to 
speak by the Infinite Wisdom and Foreknowledge 
of God. In the Fifth Chapter of the Revelation 
which is the Prelude to all the visions that follow 
John tells us that he saw in the right hand of Him 



The Seven Seals 13 



who sat upon the Throne a book or scroll written 
on both sides and sealed with seven seals. This was 
the Book of the Future, the Book of Destiny if you 
please so to term it. "And I wept much because no one 
in Heaven or on earth was able to open the Book 
or to look thereon." "Weep not" said one of the 
Elders, "Behold the Lion of the Tribe of Judah 
hath prevailed to open the Book and the seven seals 
thereof." Jesus then came forward, and taking the 
Scroll out of His Father's hand, broke its Seals one 
by one. As He unrolled and read the visions here 
recorded passed like a panorama before the mind 
of the Apostle. I do not suppose that John fully 
comprehended their meaning, but Jesus Christ did. 
He had proved his worthiness to be the leader in 
the great World Crisis by previous encounters with 
the hosts of sin and hell, in which He had come off 
victorious. To Him, therefore, as the trusted 
Leader all needful information was communicated. 
He enters the campaign knowing before hand every 
plan and every movement, the issue of every battle, 
and all the consequences and results of the great 
Cataclysm of the nations. 

2. Knowing all about this great war so long be- 
forehand He was fully prepared. In July, 1914, 
many well informed men were aware that war was 
near at hand, but there were very few who were 
not surprised by the suddenness and fury with which 
it burst upon the world. But the Lion of Judah 
was not surprised. In advance of the swiftly mo- 
bilized armies of Germany He was already upon 
the field. Having been proclaimed King of all 



14 The Time of the End 

the earth, a Crown was placed upon His royal brow. 
He carried in His hand a Bow, the surest and farth- 
est-shooting implement of ancient days. He rode 
upon a White Horse and went forth "Conquering 
and to conquer." A Horse in the Book of the Rev- 
elation is the symbol of swift and powerful move- 
ment or activity. The nature of the action is indi- 
cated by the color or other characteristics. The 
white horse indicates the purity and beneficence 
of His activity. Thus equipped our great "White 
Champion" rides forth "conquering and to conquer." 
In every battle, whichever side seems to win, Christ 
is the real victor, and His conquests will go on 
and on, until every enemy is subdued and the whole 
world is subject to His dominion. 

3. The Third Item of the War Program of 
Christ is disclosed in the breaking of the four Seals 
following the first. As these are opened, War, 
Famine, Pestilence and Massacre, four of the most 
terrible agencies for the destruction of mankind, suc- 
cessively rush forth upon the earth. In the Vision 
of War upon the Red Horse, the magnitude and 
vast extent of this conflict are indicated. In his 
hand is a great sword, and power is given him to 
take peace from the whole earth. The Vision of 
Famine upon the Black Horse with a pair of scales 
in his hand is a striking picture of existing condi- 
tions. Careful Conservation of food is the warn- 
ing cry today, and in the vision, Famine is most 
earnestly cautioned against waste or unfair dis- 
tribution. There is even the prediction of the ex- 
treme prices of grain — a quart of wheat or three 



The Seven Seals 15 



quarts of barley for 17 cents. This is the limit that 
must not be exceeded. By these three agencies, 
War, Famine and Pestilence, one-fourth of the in- 
habitants of the earth, or at least of the war-swept 
portions of it are to perish. At the opening of the 
Fifth Seal the martyrs of the Early Church appear 
beneath the Altar crying "Lord how long? how 
long!" In answer, a fresh token of favor is be- 
stowed upon them, and they are bidden to wait until 
the roll is completed, until their brethren have been 
killed as they were killed. Alas, and alas! We 
have been saying that the days of martyrdom were 
ended, but the seal has been broken, a million or 
more have already passed on to join this great com- 
pany, and I greatly fear that their number is to be 
multiplied many fold before the dark night of the 
Great Tribulation is over. 

Why are such awful things permitted as those 
which are taking place in the world, as foreshadowed 
in these visions? Some say God is directly respon- 
sible — that He wills these things to be, and there- 
fore He is the doer of them. Some say the world 
is governed by blind Fate, and God, if there be a 
God, does not interfere. Mr. H. G. Wells, the 
novelist, has given us his creed, that God is benevo- 
lent but not omnipotent; that He is constantly 
struggling against the evil forces that would destroy 
the world, and doing the best He can, but there are 
many thing He cannot do until men rally in suf- 
ficient numbers and strength to His aid. But it is 
not necessary to resort to this theory of a limited 
God which some are adopting as the only solution 



1 6 The Time of the End 

of these perplexing problems. If Mr. Wells had 
said that there are many things God cannot wisely 
do until men come to His aid, his theology would 
have been more nearly correct, but his theory would 
not have been new. In the Book of the Revelation 
Christ is represented as "Breaking the Seals." As 
if there were mighty Forces He had long been re- 
straining which He now releases. The poet Hal- 
leck has expressed the thought in regard to one of 
these forces in his apostrophe to death — 

"Come when the blessed seals 
That close the pestilence, are broke 
And crowded cities wail the stroke." 

But after all this is only saying that the things 
now taking place in the world are by God's per- 
mission. Beyond a certain limit it is not ours to 
reason why. Our part is to line up with God and 
help to put an end to them. This is the practical 
solution of all these dark problems and I know 
of no other. 

4. The Fourth Item in the Program of Christ is 
the judgment of the nations. Individuals may be 
judged in a future state but nations as such must be 
judged here and now. "After death the Judgment" 
is a principle that does not apply at all to them for 
they have no corporate existence in any world but 
this. A nation therefore if judged at all must be 
judged in this present world. I will admit that in 
the judgment of the nations the principal element 
is that of discipline or correction. But the element 
of punishment is also not wanting As we sow we 



The Seven Seals 17 



must reap is true of nations as well as of individuals. 
Terrible as are the Judgments of God falling upon 
nations we must admit in most cases the justice of 
the popular saying that they "are getting what is 
coming to them." The conscience of mankind after 
all approves of the sentiments expressed by Julia 
Ward Howe when she sings — 

"I have read a fiery gospel writ in burning rows of 

steel 
As ye deal with my companions so with you my 

grace shall deal." 

The Vision of the Sixth Seal as well as the Sec- 
ond Psalm reveals to us the fact that the period of 
the great war is the Judgment Day of the nations. 
Isaiah has written "The Nation or kingdom that 
will not serve thee" — that is not God or Christ but 
Zion, the Kingdom of. God, — "shall perish, yea 
those nations shall be utterly destroyed." Many na- 
tions in the past have thus been destroyed. It does 
not seem to be the purpose of God to utterly destroy 
any nation at the present time although some of 
them have been brought almost to the verge of ex- 
tinction, but there is scarcely a nation upon which 
the stroke of judgment is not falling with greater or 
less severity. It is written in the Second Psalm of 
the King and Judge "Thou shalt rule them with a 
rod of iron ; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a pot- 
ter's vessel." The War itself is His iron scepter 
with which He is dashing in pieces the refractory na- 
tions. In the vision of the Sixth Seal which is the 



1 8 The Time of the End 

Vision of Judgment we are shown that all classes are 
involved. The great men, the rich men, the military 
captains, the common men bond and free. Every- 
where the hearts of men are failing for fear of what 
is coming or may come upon them. I think the Rev- 
elator must have had some glimpse of what is going 
on in the trenches today — that he must have seen 
men by thousands burrowing in the earth trying to 
escape the iron hail and noxious gases from bursting 
bombs when he described them as calling upon the 
rocks and mountains to cover them and hide them 
from the face of the Judge "For the great day of 
His wrath is come and who shall be able to stand." 
Included in the Vision of Judgment as a part of 
the judgment of the nations, is the remarkable pre- 
diction of the fall of the rulers of the world in Rev- 
elation 6:13. "And the Stars of heaven fell unto the 
earth as the fig tree casteth her unripe figs when it 
is shaken by a mighty wind." In two places in the 
Book of the Revelation stars represent rulers or 
leaders in the Church. These are Rev. 1 :ig where 
the Stars in the right hand of Christ symbolize the 
messengers or ministers of the seven churches of 
Asia, and Rev. 12:1 where the Woman who symbol- 
izes the Early Church has a crown of twelve stars 
representing the Twelve Apostles. In one other 
place, Rev. 12:4, Stars may represent the fallen an- 
gels although this is somewhat doubtful. In all 
other places in this Book, stars symbolize Emperors 
and kings and other rulers of the nations, and they 
are always falling stars. And in this connection it 
is interesting to observe that a "King" in this Book, 



The Seven Seals 19 



does not mean a king, but a nation. Do not all 
these things portend the Triumph of Democracy 
— that the world will soon be rid of Emperors and 
Kings and Autocrats of every grade, and that the 
rule of the people will be established in all the na- 
tions. The rising spirit of Democracy is the mighty 
wind that is shaking the Tree, and will continue to 
shake it I believe until it is entirely bare and all its 
untimely fruit is scattered upon the ground. "Be 
wise now therefore O ye kings; be instructed ye 
judges of the earth — kiss the Son lest He be angry 
with you and ye perish from the way, for His wrath 
will in a little while be kindled." This terrible war 
would almost be worth while if this were its only 
result. The thrones of earth must be vacated in 
order that they may be occupied by Him who is 
King of kings and Lord of lords. 



CHAPTER II 

THE SEVEN TRUMPETS 

Or Scenes and Incidents of the Great War 

THE Second Series of Visions, recorded in the 
8th, 9th and nth Chapters, are known as the 
Visions of the Seven Trumpets because they 
are announced by seven angelic Trumpeters. These 
are supplementary to the first series arid are de- 
signed to give us a more detailed view of actual 
scenes and occurrences during the progress of the 
conflict. The Prelude to these visions (Rev. 
8:3-5) is interesting. For centuries the prayers of 
saints have been ascending to God for the coming 
of His Kingdom. The general expectation has 
been that the Kingdom would come gradually and 
peacefully through the leavening of the nations with 
the teachings and spirit of Christianity. Anything 
like a world-wide war would have been looked upon 
as a catastrophe almost fatal to the progress of the 
kingdom. Well the time had come for these pray- 
ers to be answered. An angel gathers them up in 
his censer, mingling them with coals of fire from 
off the Altar, and casts them down to earth. The 
result is not peace but War, symbolized as a vast 
cyclonic storm that sweeps over the earth with 
thunder and lightning and a great earthquake. 

The First Trumpeter blows and the Storm con- 
tinues with increasing violence, with the addition 
20 



The Seven Trumpets 21 

now of "Hail, and Fire mingled with Blood" (vs. 
7 ) . To understand the meaning of the Hail we turn 
to the description of a great hail storm in Rev. 16:2, 
"And there fell upon men a great hail out of heav- 
en, every stone about the weight of a talent (ioo 
pounds) and men blasphemed God because of the 
plague of the hail, for it was exceeding great." 
This seems to be the description of a great Air Raid. 
The Visions of the Seven Vials in which it is found 
are similar to those of the Seven Trumpets, but re- 
fer to a war period of later date. These storms of 
hail mingled with fire and blood and accompanied 
with crashes of thunder and flashes of lightning, 
seem to represent the falling and bursting of bombs, 
whether dropped from air craft or shot from the 
cannon's moutru 

When the Second Trumpeter sounds "a great 
mountain burning with fire" is cast into the sea, by 
which a third part of the ships is destroyed (vs. 8, 
9). John never saw or dreamed of Submarines, 
Torpedoes or Mines, and when the vision came be- 
fore him of great ships suddenly blown to pieces, 
the figure of the Burning Mountain cast into the sea 
was naturally suggested to his mind as the only 
adequate cause. In the later Vision of the Sea, 
it is again described as red with human blood, but 
no such figure as this is employed. We have here 
an intimation, it may be, that the day of the Sub- 
marine is to be ended in this war, while on the other 
hand the Air Craft will become more of a menace 
and will be employed to a larger extent in the War 
or wars of the future. 



22 The Time of the End 

The Vision of the Third Trumpeter is one of the 
most interesting and important of all these In- 
spired War Pictures. It reveals to us the Cause of 
this great war. This is a question that has been 
much agitated, and a great variety of answers have 
been given, especially by people of different nation- 
alities. But it was answered in the Bible long ago 
and this should settle all controversies on the sub- 
ject. "There fell from heaven a great Star, burning 
as a torch, and it fell upon the third part of the 
rivers and upon the Fountains of water. And the 
name of the Star is called Wormwood ; and the 
third part of the waters became wormwood; and 
many died of the waters because they were made 
bitter" (vs. 10, n). Here is the story not of the 
political but the moral downfall of a great and bril- 
liant Ruler, the most conspicuous, and the most 
efficient of modern times; impelled by a boundless 
ambition he conceived the largest plans of aggran- 
dizement for himself and people that ever entered 
the human mind. They were to be the Super men, 
the Lords of the whole earth in science and art and 
learning, in manufacture and commerce as well as 
in political power. And because other people stood 
in his way he became exceedingly bitter and hated 
them with implacable hatred. And then he 'fell 
into the Fountains of water.' For a quarter of a 
century he has bent all his energies and the power 
of his great genius to the education of his people to 
hate and despise the people of other nations. 
Eighteen centuries ago and more a name was giv- 
en to him by an inspired Prophet. He is the Star 



The Seven Trumpets 23 

Wormwood. He and he alone is the Cause of this 
great world war. 

The Fourth Vision requires but a few words of 
explanation. In the Book of Revelation, the Sun is 
God, the Moon is the World, the Stars as already 
explained are the Rulers of the earth. This is evi- 
dent I think from the description given in Chapter 
12 of the Woman who represented the Early 
Church. She was "Clothed with the Sun" the 
Moon was beneath her feet, the crown of 12 Stars 
was upon her head. The meaning of this vision will 
now be clear without further comment. Elsewhere 
we have the prophecy that "The Sun shall be dark- 
ened and the Moon be turned into blood and the 
Stars cease their shining, and fall from the skies, be- 
fore the coming of the great and notable Day of 
God." 

The Vision of the Fifth Trumpeter is one of the 
most interesting and important in the entire Book — 
interesting partly because it never was understood, 
and never could be understood we might almost say 
until the present moment, and important because, 
more than any other it opens up for us the vista of 
the future. This vision has always been interpreted 
as describing a certain fall of the Devil into the Pit 
of Hell which resulted in the opening up of the Pit 
and the invasion of the earth by a swarm of 
Demons. I can scarcely conceive why this interpre- 
tation should be given, for the Devil had already 
been cast out from the heavenly places to the earth 
where he remains as a slimy, crawling Dragon until 
the very close of this Age or Dispensation. (See 



24 The Time of the End 

Rev. 12:7-12 and 20:1-3). This Vision of the 
Fifth Trumpet is not the Vision of Hell or of Hell 
opened out upon the earth, but it is the Vision of 
Russia. First we have the Fall of the Czar. Un- 
like the fall of the Kaiser in the third vision, this is 
a political not a moral fall. To him had been given 
the key to the Pit of the Abyss. Into that Pit had 
been pressed a great and noble people or at least the 
liberty-loving portions of them. Their King was 
Abaddon the Hebrew word for "destruction" or as 
he was called in Greek, Apollyon "the Destroyer." 
Their condition was seemingly hopeless. The lid 
was on and the Czar held the key and would not or 
could not give them freedom and the common rights 
and privileges of humanity. The fall of the Czar 
opened up this Pit. A great smoke first arose from 
it. When the lid was off the world could see the 
horrors of this Abyss as never before, that it was a 
veritable Hell on earth if we may so express it. 
Then follows the description of the swarm of people 
emerging from the Abyss in which they had so long 
been confined. We must bear in mind that every 
part of this description is symbolical. They are a 
swarm of Locusts whose leader is this same Apoll- 
yon of the Abyss. This is the figure often employed 
in the Bible to describe an invading army which is 
an undisciplined horde that lives off the country 
through which it marches and eats everything clean. 
In this case it represents the appearance of a great 
body of anarchists, or socialists with anarchistic ten- 
dencies, whose chief desire is to obtain their share of 
those material resources which have been so long 



The Seven Trumpets 25 

denied to them. Their breastplates are of iron ; they 
are armed with an invincible purpose and determina- 
tion. They have the faces of men — they are not 
lacking in mental or physical ability is perhaps the 
meaning. They have the hair of women. The 
Apostle in his vision saw that women were almost 
as prominent in their ranks as men. "They were 
like horses prepared for war." They were active and 
full of energy, ready to fight if necessary. Upon 
their heads were crowns of gold. As in America 
every man was a king. "And the sound of their 
wings was as the sound of chariots rushing to war. 
And they have tails like unto scorpions and stings in 
their tails." By this last expression I understand 
simply the use of guns in war. (See verse 19.) 

We will now consider two interesting statements 
about this great Body of Russian Socialists that are 
important as prophecies and that are or will be lit- 
erally fulfilled. The first is their treatment of their 
former oppressors. "It was given them that they 
should not kill them but that they should be tor- 
mented five months" (v. 5). The Russians in spite 
of their iron determination are a humane and kindly 
people. The five months have already expired and 
no one I think has been murdered or even tried and 
convicted for any political crime. A Republic has been 
proclaimed, and now a second restraint is laid upon 
them "And it was said unto them that they should 
not hurt the grass of the earth neither any green 
thing neither any tree but only such men as have not 
the seal of God upon their foreheads." (Rev. 9:4). 
Compare this with Rev. 7:2, 3. "And I saw an- 



26 The Time of the End 

other angel ascend from the sunrising having the 
seal of the living God. And he cried with a great 
voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to 
hurt the earth and the sea, saying Hurt not the 
earth nor the sea nor the trees till we have sealed 
the servants of God on their foreheads." I suppose 
these two injunctions are simultaneous and are prac- 
tically the same, the one being given to the Russian 
Socialists and the other to the four angels who are 
supervising their activities. From these two pro- 
phetic statements I derive several inferences all of 
which I believe to be legitimate. 

i. We know our exact location upon the pro- 
phetic Chart. Five months from the fall of the 
Czar, at the time of the Proclamation of the Rus- 
sian Republic and the laying of a temporary re- 
straint upon the extreme Socialistic elements, the Vi- 
sion of the Sixth Seal unfolding like a Panorama 
before our eyes. 

2. After the downfall of Autocracy and the tri- 
umph of Democracy in the world the next political 
change will be the establishment of the Socialistic 
State. 

3. Socialism would doubtless destroy many "dry 
things," institutions, laws and customs that have out- 
lived their usefulness and are ready for the burning. 
But it would also destroy many "green things" like 
grass and trees in the natural world, things in our 
civilization that have vitality and value. 

4. Russia is to be the pioneer and leader in the 
introduction of Socialism. In fact the Russians or 
the great majority of them are ready for some form 



The Seven Trumpets 27 

of socialism today, but it would be perilous to intro- 
duce it just now. So the cry is in Russia "Wait un- 
til the War is over and adjustments are made. Let 
our new Republic have the right of way." And God 
says that His Kingdom also must have the right of 
way. "Wait until we have sealed the servants of 
God upon their foreheads." So from this Vision of 
the Fifth Trumpet we gain quite an outlook upon 
the future that lies before us. 

The blast *of the Sixth Trumpet follows very 
closely that of the Fifth. The Four Angels bound 
by the River Euphrates remind one of the Gates of 
the Temple of Janus. When these were opened War 
issued forth in every direction. So when these an- 
gels are loosed the great war spreads, North, South 
East and West, until the whole world is practically 
involved. These angels are loosed immediately after 
the Fall of the Czar. And we all know how the 
war spread after the Russian Revolution. The 
United States, Greece, China, Siam, Brazil, and 
other South American countries have declared 
war on Germany and the countries remaining 
neutral are becoming more and more involved. A 
vast number of people are engaged directly and in- 
directly in the activities of the war. Besides the 
armies of soldiers and the navies, there are Aviators 
and Engineers and Ambulance Drivers, an army of 
Nurses and a great host of Munition workers and 
another still greater manufacturing or producing 
food and clothing and other supplies. I do not 
think John exaggerated when he said "The num- 
ber of the horsemen" — those engaged in the activi- 



28 The Time of the End 

ties of the war is "twice ten thousand times ten 
thousand" that is 200,000,000. The remainder of 
this vision is an attempt to describe in Symbolism 
what no one in John's day could have understood if 
described literally — the machinery of modern war- 
fare in action. The lion's heads of the demon 
Horses, and their mouths breathing forth fire and 
smoke and brimstone represent I think the cannon; 
and their tails with serpent's heads that bite and kill, 
the smaller arms such as guns and bayonets and 
swords. Horses are the principal figure in this sym- 
bolism because as I have already shown the Horse is 
the emblem of swift and powerful action. 



CHAPTER III 

THE "CRUX INTERPRETORUM" AND THE SEVENTH 
TRUMPET 

Revelation ioth and nth Chapters 

" T) LOW again trumpeter — conjure war alarms 
JD Swift to thy spell a shuddering hum like dis- 
tant thunder rolls, 

Lo, where the armed men hasten — lo! mid the 
clouds of dust the glint of bayonets, 

I see the grime faced cannoneers, I mark the rosy 
flash amid the smoke, I hear the cracking of 
the guns. 

Nor war alone — thy fearful music song, wild play- 
er, brings every sight of fear. 

The deeds of ruthless brigands, rapine, murder — I 
hear the cries for help, 

I see ships foundering on the sea. I behold on deck 
and below deck the terrible tableaus. 

trumpeter, methinks I am myself the instrument 

thou playest, 
Thou meltest my heart, my brain — thou movest, 

drawest, changest them at will, 
And now thy sullen notes send darkness through me, 
Thou takest away all cheering light, all hope, 

1 see the enslaved, the overthrown, the hurt, the 

oppressed of the whole earth. 
I feel the measureless humiliation of my race, it be- 
comes all mine, 

29 



30 The Time of the End 

Mine too the revenges of humanity, the wrongs of 
ages, baffled feuds and frauds. 

Utter defeat upon me weighs — all lost — the foe vic- 
torious, 

Yet mid the ruins Pride colossal stands unshaken to 
the last, 

Endurance, resolution to the last. 

Now trumpeter, for thy close 
Vouchsafe a higher strain than any yet, 
Sing to my soul, renew its languishing faith and 

hope, 
Rouse up my slow belief, give me some vision of 

the future 
Give me once more its prophecy and joy. 

O glad, exulting, culminating song! 

A vigor more than earth's is in thy notes, 

Marches of victory — man disenthralled — the Con- 
queror at last. 

Hymns to the universal God from universal man — 
all joy! 

A reborn race appears — a perfect world, all joy! 

Women and men in wisdom, innocence, and health 
— all joy! 

War, Sorrow, suffering gone — the rank earth 
purged, nothing but joy left! 

The ocean filled with joy — the atmosphere all joy! 

Joy! Joy! in freedom, worship, love! joy in the 
ecstasy of life! 

Enough to merely be! enough to breathe! 

Joy! joy! all over joy!" 
— From "The Trumpeter' by Walt Whitman. 



The Crux Interpretorum 31 

We have been dealing thus far with prophecies 
already fulfilled and which therefore explain them- 
selves. Passing these we reach at once the most ob- 
scure and difficult section of the entire Book, known 
as the ''Crux Interpretorum" or Cross of the inter- 
preters. If anything illuminating has ever been 
written upon this section or any reasonable explana- 
tion of some portions of it has ever been given I 
have failed to discover it. I have an impression 
which grows upon me as I study it, that this sec- 
tion (Rev. 10:1 to 11:14) is not an inspired pro- 
duction and was never written by John himself. If 
this be the case it must have been inserted at an early 
date for there is no evidence of such insertion from 
the oldest manuscripts. I must therefore treat it 
as part of the record and do the best I can with it. 
My comments will be but few. With regard to the 
Seven Thunders (vs. 3, 4) there is, of course, noth- 
ing to be said, for nothing is said in the record. The 
message of the angel arrayed with a cloud, and with 
a lion-like voice must, of course, have been a pre- 
lude to the opening of the Seventh Seal, for when 
that was opened "there was silence in Heaven about 
the space of half an hour." His message so far as 
I can see was only this — that there should be no 
longer delay, that events must be hurried on, and 
that when the Seventh Trumpet sounded as it pre- 
sently would, the Book of mystery would be en- 
tirely opened, the period of the great war would be 
entirely over, and the results would be already se- 
cured according to the program of Christ. 

The latter part of the 10th Chapter is an imi- 



32 The Time of the End 

tation of Ezekiel. Its significance is wholly per- 
sonal to the Prophet himself — the little book or 
scroll of prophecy that was given him to "eat" was 
bitter to the taste, the predicting of so much misery 
and calamity was a disagreeable task repugnant to 
his kindly spirit, but when he had digested it, it 
became sweet; for he could see on reflection, that 
the wars and judgments he denounced would is- 
sue at last in beneficent and blessed results. 

The measurement of the Holy City and Temple 
in ii :i, 2 is also imitated from Ezekiel. If within 
the next two years Jerusalem should fall into Chris- 
tian hands, and should be prepared to become the 
capital of a Jewish Republic in the Holy Land, we 
will perhaps be able to see the appropriateness of 
inserting here this brief resume of Ezekiel's proph- 
ecy. 

Verses 4 to 12 of Chapter 11, contain the strange 
story of the Two Witnesses, to whom the writer 
applies the vision in the fourth chapter of Zecha- 
riah of the Olive trees and Candlesticks. It is just 
possible that something may occur within the next 
two years to shed some light upon a subject which 
the most acute and learned men have never been 
able to explain. And it is my belief that if any- 
thing of the kind does occur it will be proven that 
these two witnesses are Nations, not individuals, — 
nations left by the War lying prostrate and almost 
lifeless upon the streets of that great City which is 
the World, but restored again to life and strength. 

The Opening of the Seventh Seal is mentioned 
in Rev. 8:1. What will take place at this time 



The Crux Interpretorum 33 

on the earth we can only guess, for there is no vision 
to guide us. We are only told that the music of 
Heaven, the songs of the angels and of the Re- 
deemed will cease, and that there will be Silence for 
about the space of half an hour, whether from con- 
sternation, or wonder and suspense, or eager ex- 
pectation, we are not informed. This Silence, I 
believe, will continue until the Seventh Trumpet 
sounds when the chorus breaks forth from the glad 
voices of the Heavenly Choir, "The Kingdoms of 
this world are become the Kingdom of our Lord, 
and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and 
ever." I do not understand by this that the End 
has come or that the Millennial Reign of Christ has 
begun. It is too soon for that. The Destroyers 
of the earth are yet to be destroyed (n :i8). Men 
are still worshipping idols in heathen lands, and in 
so-called Christian lands they are worshipping gold 
and stocks and bonds and houses and lands, and are 
practicing fornication and thefts and deceit (9:20, 
21). It can only mean that the Thrones of earth 
are standing vacant, ready for Christ, the only 
King, that men very generally are acclaiming Him 
as such, that human governments are being Chris- 
tianized, and that the world is so far ready and pre- 
pared for the Reign of Immanuel, that the inhab- 
itants of Heaven can see and know that "He shall 
reign forever and ever." 



CHAPTER IV 

THE PROPHETIC DATES 

INCREDIBLE as it may seem to many minds it is 
nevertheless a fact capable of demonstration that 
the Prophets of the Bible were able by Divine Rev- 
elation, not merely to foretell events of the distant fu- 
ture, but also, in some instances, to designate the 
exact dates of their occurrence hundreds and even 
thousands of years beforehand. Thus Noah it is 
believed, predicted the time of the Flood 120 years 
before it came (Genesis 6:3). Jeremiah foretold 
the duration of the Babylonish Captivity, a period 
of 70 years. Daniel in his great Prophecy of the 
coming Messiah (Daniel 9:24-27) gave the exact 
date of His Manifestation to Israel, at the time of 
His baptism, 483 years from' the Decree of Ahas- 
huerns to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. He also 
gave the date of the Crucifixion three and one-half 
years later. One of the most remarkable of these 
prophecies is that which fixes the End of the Ro- 
man Empire in A. D. 1299, and which we shall 
presently consider. There are several of these dated 
prophecies that have not yet been fulfilled, although 
the time is drawing near. These prophecies are 
found in Revelation 13:8 and 12, 14, Daniel 12, 
11 and 12, and Revelation 17:10. There are also 
Time indications in Revelation 8:1, 9:10 and 9:15, 
that may have a bearing upon the question of the 
duration of the present war. 
34 



The Prophetic Dates 35 

In the study of these Time Prophecies Three 
Rules or principles of interpretation should be borne 
in mind. First, they are of an Enigmatical charac- 
ter; we are very liable to follow a false trail, and 
we should never be too sure of results, even when 
we have carefully checked them up with one another 
and with the events of actual history. Secondly, 
the measure of time that is constantly recurring is 
the divided week, the "Time times and half a time" 
of prophecy, literally three and a half days. What 
this means in each particular case is usually the main 
problem in the determination of the dates. Some- 
times as in Daniel 9 :27 the period intended is three 
and a half years. More commonly there is a sort 
of double application of the prophetic rule that a day 
stands for a year. Three and a half days are 3^ 
years, that is 42 months of 30 days each or 1,260 
days; and 1,260 days are 1,260 years. In Daniel 
12:11, 12 there are two extended periods of 1290 
and 1335 "days" or years respectively. In one of 
the most important and least understood prophecies 
of the Bible there seems to be a third variation in 
this measurement of time, a "Day" standing neither 
for a year nor for 360 years but for a Century. 
The prophecy to which I refer is Revelation 12:14. 
In several places in the Book of Revelation, the 
Hour is also spoken of. If a Day is a Century an 
Hour is one twenty-fourth part of a century or 
four years and two months. This I believe is the 
prophetic measurement of time by which the "days" 
and "hours" are now being counted out by the 
great clock of the universe, in this our world. 



36 The Time of the End 

The third principle of interpretation is that all 
measurements of time in the Book of the Revelation 
are taken from one of two dates — the two Flights 
of the Woman representing the Church. The first 
flight when she escaped from the Jewish fold into 
the Wilderness of the Gentile world was in A. D. 
39 when Peter by Divine command opened wide the 
door for her at the meeting in the House of Corne- 
lius. The second date is A. D. 1620 when she 
made that longer and more perilous flight across 
the stormy Atlantic to the shores of America where 
she might find in a new and wilderness land, protec- 
tion and nourishment until the return of her Lord. 

Applying these principles of interpretation to the 
prophecies in question we reach the following re- 
sults. 

1. The Roman Empire came to an end in A. D. 
1299. That there may be no mistake in the date 
John tells us just what should occur at that time 
"And I saw one of his heads at it were, wounded 
unto death; and his deadly wound was healed; so 
that all wondered at the Beast." Revelation 13:3. 

The Beast, representing the Roman Empire was 
at this time, and had been for nearly a thousand 
years a two-headed creature so to speak, that is, 
there were two Empires, the Eastern and the West- 
ern. In 1299 the Ottoman or Turkish Empire was 
founded by Othman I, who having ascended the 
throne, immediately proceeded to inflict a crushing 
defeat upon the forces of the Eastern or Byzantine 
Empire destroying forever its power in all Asia and 
practically terminating its existence as an Empire. 



The Prophetic Dates 37 

This is precisely what John predicted to occur at 
this precise time. Revelation 13:5 "There was giv- 
en him authority to continue Forty-two months." 
Forty-two months is 1,260 "days" or years. Add 
these to A. D. 39 we have the date 1299 A. D. at 
which these things were to take place. At the same 
time the Western or Holy Roman Empire came to 
an end, through the jealousy of the European na- 
tions who despoiled the Pope of his temporal sov- 
ereignty. Three years afterward he was compelled 
to flee from Rome to Avignon in France where for a 
number of years he set up his Episcopal See. 1299 
then is the prophetic date for the end of the Roman 
Empire and a more suitable date it would be impos- 
sible to fix. But how did John know all this twelve 
centuries before hand? He could have known it 
only by Divine revelation. 

2. The last Battle that will ever be fought upon 
the earth will be in 1965. In Revelation 13:18 a 
challenge is given to the "Man of Understanding" 
to "count the number of the Beast," for "His Num- 
ber is six hundred and three score and six." This 
number is itself a curiosity. Six and eleven being 
the imperfect numbers of the Bible, 666, which is 
six times 1 1 1 , represents the very extreme of imper- 
fection. Therefore the warning against worship- 
ping the number of the Beast. But this is only a 
side issue. The prophecy is introduced by the phrase 
"Here is wisdom" indicating that this is one of the 
Key-verses of the Book. Solve this Enigma and you 
will be able to unlock many of the mysteries here 
contained. Perhaps we might call it the Key to the 



38 The Time of the End 

Time-Lock of Prophecy. From the days of Sir Isaac 
Newton down all sorts of curious and ridiculous 
calculations have been made to prove that this Sec- 
ond Beast was Nero or the Pope of Rome, and that 
his name or title was indicated by the number 666. 
There is however, but one reasonable and common- 
sense solution of this enigma. The Period of the 
First Beast, the Roman Empire, was 1260 years; it 
came to an end in 1299. The period of the Second 
Beast its successor and heir is 666. These are not 
prophetical years, but just plain years "according to 
the number of a man" or as men commonly reckon 
them. Now 666 added to 1299 gives 1965. This 
is the date at which the second beast will meet his 
Waterloo as described in Revelation 19:20 and will 
be thrust down alive into the Lake of Fire to trou- 
ble the earth no more, 1965 therefore is the date of 
the great Battle of Armageddon, the last and blood- 
iest of all the battles of earth, and the end of all 
wars. Thenceforward through the ages under the 
mild reign of King Immanuel, there shall be "Peace 
as long as the moon endureth." 

3. We will next consider the two extended pe- 
riods of Daniel 12:11, 12. The first of these, the 
1,290 years corresponds very nearly with the 1,260 
year period of the Roman Empire. It begins 14 
years earlier at the Baptism of Christ, A. D. 25. 
From this count 290 years to the time of the alli- 
ance between the Church and the Empire, A. D. 
315. This leaves 1,000 years in round numbers 
during which the alliance continues. The Second 
extended period of 1,335 years must be understood 



The Prophetic Dates 39 

in a similar way. As the Woman who represents 
the Church lived in harlotry with the Beast or Em- 
pire of Rome for a thousand years, so in the latter 
days, as the glorious Bride, purged from every spot 
and stain she shall share the throne, and live in 
holy union with Christ her King and Lord for a 
thousand years. That is the Millennium. 335 
years of this period remain. If we count them from 
1,620 we reach the date 1955, ten years earlier 
than that previously obtained. This however is 
not the date of Armageddon, but of the coming 
of the Bridegroom and the marriage Supper of the 
Lamb. 

4. One more of the great Time Prophecies of 
the Bible is still to be considered more fully, Reve- 
lation 12 \I4, "And there were given to the Woman 
the two wings of a great eagle that she might fly 
into the wilderness unto her place where she is 
nourished for a time, and times and half a time from 
the face of the serpent." To America a wilderness 
land reserved and prepared of God for this pur- 
pose, was committed in 1620, a great and sacred 
trust, the guardianship and care of the future 
Bride of Christ. This trust was to continue for a 
"time, times and half a time," three and a half cen- 
tury 'days,' 350 years, when America's guardianship 
will no longer be needed. This brings us to 1970, 
the date of the Millennium. 

You can scarcely fail to observe some remarka- 
ble correspondencies between the dates thus deter- 
mined and certain dates in our American History. 
In 1 86 1 the Southern Confederacy was formed for 



4-0 The Time of the End 

the perpetuation of slavery, by war if war should 
be necessary. In 1961 the last Confederacy "the 
Seventh Empire" will be formed for the final stand 
against the advancing kingdom of Jesus Christ. The 
Southern Confederacy lasted just one prophetic 
Hour — four years and two months; the Seventh 
Empire will last one Hour, (Revelation 17:10) 
four years and two months. In 1865 the last bat- 
tle of the Civil War was fought, and human sla- 
very was forever ended in all civilized lands, and 
the most wonderful half century of enlightenment 
and progress in all history dawned upon the earth. 
In 1965 the last battle will be fought upon the 
bloodstained plains of earth, the Beast of War will 
be destroyed and the glorious years of universal 
peace will begin. It is also worthy of remark that 
from Waterloo to Appomattox is 50 years; from 
Appomattox to the Marne is 50 years less one, and 
from the Marne to Armageddon is 50 years and 
one more. The Kaiser, it is said, had planned to 
begin the great War in the spring of 191 5. If he 
had not been hurried forward by Austria and Rus- 
sia the Pendulum would have had an even swing 
for 150 years. 

Note i. — The famous prophecy attributed to 
Tolstoy so often quoted after the outbreak of the 
war in 1914 was not so much a prophecy as an In- 
terpretation. In the margin of Revelation 13:18, 
in the Revised Version is a reading found in some 
ancient manuscripts giving the number of the Beast 
as 616 instead of 666. It is possible, although I 
have no means of knowing, that this is the reading 



The Prophetic Dates 41 



of the Greek Testaments in use in Russia. From 
this it would be inferred that the great Battle of 
Armageddon would take place in 19 16. Also from 
Rev. 9:10 it was inferred that the war would last 
five months. Therefore in the supposed prophecy 
we are told that by 191 5 all Europe would be 
ablaze, and that the war would close in 19 16. The 
ten years' reign of Anti-christ is put in the Tol- 
stoyan prophecy after, instead of before Armaged- 
don. The Balkan Wars could have been easily 
foreseen if they had not already begun when the 
prophecy was written. 

Note 2. — When will this war close? Are there 
any time-indications in the Prophecies relating to 
this period that will throw any light upon this prob- 
lem? My answer is, there may be and there may 
not be. There are too many uncertainties to speak 
positively upon this question. In the King James 
Version of Rev. 9:15, following the Vulgate, we 
read that the Four Angels loosed by the Euphrates 
had been prepared for an hour and a day and a 
month and a year. In the Revised Versions the 
reading is that they were prepared 'for the hour and 
day and month and year,' and this is the reading in 
the Greek texts now adopted. I myself prefer the 
first reading; John would have simply written that 
the angels were prepared for that very hour if that 
was what he meant. Following the first reading there 
seems to be here a time-indication of the duration of 
the war. The 'Hour' first mentioned is, I believe, the 
prophetic hour, four years and two months. To 
this is added "a year a month and a day," making 



42 The Time of the End 

in all five years three months and one day. If this 
be the meaning the war will close November 2d, 
1919. 

Another time-indication is given in Rev. 8:1. 
The "Silence in Heaven," is for "about the space of 
half an hour," that is two years and one month. It 
begins at the opening of the Seventh Seal and ends 
with the blowing of the Seventh Trumpet. The 
close of the war may or may not be coincident with 
the Seventh Trumpet. For aught we know it may 
be the opening of the Seventh Seal. If so there will 
be an interval of two years and one month, an inter- 
val of breathless suspense in Heaven, before the final 
arrangements are made for securing a lasting peace 
and Christianizing the governments of the world. 
The War Period then would close about Jan. 1st, 
1 92 1, when the Seventh Trumpet would blow and 
there would be a great jubilee of rejoicing in Heav- 
en and on earth. 



CHAPTER V 

THE PART OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE GREAT 
WORLD-CRISIS 

"And there were given to the Woman the two 
wings of the great eagle that she might fly into the 
wilderness unto her place where she is nourished for 
a time and times and a half a time from the face of 
the Serpent/' — Revelation 12:14. 

I HAVE already alluded to this great Prophecy 
and suggested its interpretation in relation to the 
Time-Problems of the prophetic Word. But it 
surely deserves a more thorough study and a more 
complete unfolding of the hidden meanings that lie 
wrapped up within it. Especially so for us who are 
Americans because this is the only Prophetic refer- 
ence, and the only reference in the Bible so far as I am 
aware to the Land we love. Let me say in the outset 
that I do not think we should confine the representa- 
tives of the Bride who emigrated to America, to our 
Pilgrim Fathers. They were the first and perhaps the 
choicest, their coming fixes the Prophetic Date as 
1620, and I think it was their long and perilous 
flight across the stormy Atlantic and their landing 
on the shores of New England that the Apostle sees 
in the vision here described. But we may rightly 
include in that first Flight, many others who fol- 
lowed them in the early days — Puritans, Baptists, 
Quakers, Huguenots, Moravians, Calvinists of 
Holland and Scotland and others. Neither are we 
43 



44 The Time of the End 

to press the figure so far as to infer that in her 
flight she wholly forsook Europe in coming to Amer- 
isa. Representatives of the Bride remained and are 
still to be found in large numbers even in those 
Churches which may be fairly called Harlot 
Churches of the Old World. Nor are we to infer 
that the Churches of America are free from Har- 
lotry. Here as everywhere the visible or organized 
Church is a mixed company. The Harlot and the 
Bride both are here and that is true in greater or 
less degree in every land and every Church organi- 
zation on the face of the earth. With these pre- 
cautionary remarks we may proceed to unfold this 
great Prophecy in its application to our Country, 
the United States of America. 

I. America is a land Prepared of God to be the 
Home and the Heritage of the Bride of Christ. 

In the account of the Woman's first flight we are 
told that she fled into the Wilderness to a place 
"prepared of God" for her reception. In the story 
of her second flight we read that she flew as on 
eagle's wings unto "Her Place." Now it is just as 
true, and even more so that this was a place "Pre- 
pared of God" for her. Notice these particulars. It 
was a place Reserved for her. America had been 
discovered more than a century previously, but 
North America particularly was almost unoccupied 
in 1620 and scarcely at all developed by civilized 
man. Much of our present territory was unexplored 
and unknown. She came to a wilderness when she 
came to her place. It is a Place of great extent and 
of wonderful Resources. We often tell with a 



The United States 45 

thrill of pride and a glow of patriotic fervor of the 
magnificent Heritage God has given to America — 
her fertile valleys and vast prairies, her lakes and 
rivers and forests, her mines of coal and iron and 
copper, of silver and of gold ; her resources so vast 
and varied, that one-half of the population of the 
globe could be accommodated and supported in 
North America alone, and if cut off from communi- 
cation with other nations of the world, we should 
not suffer from the lack of any commodity that is 
now imported. But in our self-congratulations we 
should do well to bear in mind that this great and 
glorious Heritage has been granted to America as 
the Guardian of the Bride of Christ, and therefore 
it belongs to her, and will be hers when she comes 
into her own. Notice again that the Tlace' of the 
Bride was a place of Security. She was fleeing 
from the "face of the Serpent" who was persecuting 
and threatening to destroy her. America is a place 
of security. On one side is a people friendly and 
kindred in spirit, and beyond is the frozen North. 
On either hand broad oceans are rolling. Hitherto 
these have been sufficient for our defense and we 
have needed no standing armies. But our strongest 
bulwark is our people — brave, intelligent, God fear- 
ing, liberty-loving, mighty, when aroused to action. 
We do not like war, we covet no territorial acquisi- 
tions, we wage no wars of aggression or conquest, 
but we take no orders from Tyrant or Autocrat, we 
bow before no Anti-christ or Super-man, and if 
forced to fight for freedom and the rights of man, 
in the name of our Christ, and in behalf of the op- 



46 The Time of the End 

pressed of every land we expect and intend to win. 
2. For three hundred years America has been 
serving unconsciously as the Guardian of the Bride. 
How has she fulfilled this high and sacred trust? 
The first duty of the guardian is to provide for the 
support of his ward from the means entrusted to 
his care. This obligation in our country rests not 
upon the State as such, but upon the people of the 
land. I cannot say that they have supported the 
Church in her ministrations and her missionary and 
other enterprises as well as they might and ought to 
have done. But they have discharged this obliga- 
tion fairly well. On the whole the people of this 
country by their voluntary contributions have met 
this obligation more fully than in other lands 
where there are rich endowments and support from 
the State itself by the taxation of the people. Let 
me also say this : if the Church had had the vision and 
the consecration to undertake much larger things for 
humanity I believe the people of this country would 
have stood behind her with their money. If not the 
judgment they are now receiving would have been 
just on this ground alone. For example: it cost 
us $10,000,000 to compel Huerta to salute our flag, 
and then he did not salute it. If half that money 
had been spent 20 years before in educating and 
uplifting the Mexican people and in kindly service 
to their sick and poor the useless expenditure of the 
larger sum might have been avoided. Our return 
to China of the Indemnity paid on account of the 
Boxer rebellion has made this great people our 
friends forever, and will probably flow back to us 



The United States 47 

in manifold returns in money alone. A single bil- 
lion of the many billions we shall spend in this war 
with a small fraction of the consecrated manhood 
we are now offering as a sacrifice, might have been 
the means of so flooding Germany and Austria 
twenty years ago with spiritual illumination and 
brotherly kindness, that this war would never have 
come, or if it came we would not have been in- 
volved. The thought I have in mind is that the 
Bride, the real Church of Christ, needs support and 
nourishment from the people of every land. Amer- 
ica has discharged this obligation not as fully as she 
ought or might have done, but on the whole fairly 
well. 

But what the Church as the Bride of Christ needs 
from the State or the people of the State more than 
anything else is Freedom, and that kind and de- 
gree of protection and care which will insure to 
her Liberty, for it is only in an atmosphere of free- 
dom, that the real Church which is the Bride, can 
flourish and grow strong. That union of Church 
and State in which the State controls and dictates in 
some degree the faith and worship of the people may 
promote an external unity; it may and does dis- 
courage those strange and abnormal beliefs and 
practices that are always springing up in a free land 
like ours. But on the other hand it tends to make 
the Church itself a Harlot Church rather than a true 
Church of Jesus Christ. Two illustrations will 
make my meaning clear. In England the reigning 
Sovereign is the nominal, and was formerly the real 
Head of the English Church. I have often read, 



48 The Time of the End 

with indignation and disgust that fulsome eulogy 
of a really contemptible monarch, which used to be 
printed as a sort of preface to the Word of God, 
even by the American Bible Society. That was the 
voice of the Harlot, not of the Bride. Contrast with 
this the courteous yet fearless rebuke of a great 
Archbishop who being called to preach before this 
same king who was James I of England and VI 
of Scotland, took for his text, — James first and sixth, 
"A double minded man is unstable in all his ways." 
That was the Voice of the Bride not of the Harlot, 
and I am glad to believe that in the English Church 
the Bride has in some degree prevailed in spite of 
the unhallowed union which exists, or has existed 
to such a large extent in England between Church 
and State. But when this union is wholly dis- 
solved — when Church dignitaries are no longer 
sitting as "Lords Spiritual" beside "Lords Tem- 
poral" in the Upper House, when Dukes and Earls 
no longer hold Church 'Livings' at their disposal by 
sale or gift, when the King, if there be a king, is 
no longer Ruler of the House of God, then the Har- 
lot Church will begin to disappear and the Bride 
"clothed with the sun and the moon beneath her 
feet" will shine forth in more resplendent beauty 
until purged from every spot and stain she is fit 
for union with her King and Lord. 

One more illustration. Martin Luther whose 
400th Anniversary we are about to celebrate was 
not only the founder of the Protestant Church and 
the chief exponent and defender of its distinctive 
doctrines which are the doctrines of Liberty, but 



The United States 49 

he was one of the bravest and mightiest champions 
of liberty that God has ever raised up among men. 
Yet Martin Luther, although he freed the German 
Church from bondage to the Pope did not and per- 
haps could not free her altogether from bondage to 
the Civil powers. Of late years that bondage has 
been growing heavier — the chains have been tighten- 
ing about her neck, until it had come to pass even 
before the war that no minister could preach, and 
no teacher or professor could give instruction ex- 
cept under the supervision and dictation of the civil 
and military powers. As the result, this once free, 
noble, worthy Protestant Church of Germany has 
become in very large degree a harlot church. You 
ask the proof. Does she not sanction and approve 
the plans of her Emperor to obtain a World Do- 
minion in violation of every precept of Christianity 
and every commandment of the Decalogue? Did 
not her leaders, some of them at least, laugh with 
glee at the sinking of the Lusitania? And have they 
not become apologists for the Turks in their fiend- 
ish massacres of Armenian Christians? It is true 
that a few feeble voices have been lifted in protest 
and warning, but they have scarcely been able to 
make themselves heard. I greatly fear that the 
Church of Germany, breathing the atmosphere of 
tyranny and repression has become in large degree 
a Harlot Church. On the other hand an unpreju- 
diced observer can hardly fail to see that the Ro- 
man Catholic Church is gaining a new breadth of 
vision, and growing in spiritual life and power in 
che atmosphere of this free land of ours. I have 



$0 The Time of the End 

used these illustrations to emphasize the thought 
that one of the greatest needs, perhaps the chief 
need of the Bride of Christ is Freedom. Our Fath- 
ers crossed the Sea and braved the hardships and dis- 
comforts of the wilderness that they might here find 
that which to them was of priceless value, "Free- 
dom to worship God." The chief function, perhaps 
the only function of the State in relation to the 
Church is to secure and guarantee this freedom. 
America, therefore, has been faithful to her sacred 
trust as Guardian of the Bride of Christ, just so far 
as she has been faithful to what some would call 
her larger trust as the Guardian of human Liberty 
and the rights of man. 

America had already rendered a large service be- 
yond the bounds of her own domain, by keeping 
'open house' — that is an open door and a hospitable 
vvelcome for the oppressed and down-trodden of 
every land. The poet Lowell in his Commemora- 
tive Ode recited at Harvard just after the close of 
the Civil War, has given eloquent expression of this 
thought. 

"Be proud for she is saved and all have helped to 
save her — 
She that lifts up the manhood of the poor, 
She of the open soul and open door, 
With room about her hearth for all mankind." 

I am tempted to continue the quotation with the 
noble sentiment of love and devotion that follows: 



The United States 51 

"O beautiful, my country, ours once more 
What words divine of lover or of poet 
Could tell our love and make thee know it 
Among the nations bright beyond compare 
What were our lives without thee? 
What all our lives to save thee? 
We reck not what we gave thee; 
We will not dare to doubt thee, 
But ask whatever else, and we will dare." 

It was my hope and prayer that the United States 
would not be called upon to take any part in this 
awful war. Hitherto we had followed the advice 
of Washington and kept clear of "entangling al- 
liances" with the nations of the Old World. I can 
now see that it was predicted that the nations of 
the Western Hemisphere should enter the war at 
this time, but this fact alone would not make it clear 
that it was our duty to do so, for God has foreseen 
and caused to be foretold many things that He does 
not sanction or approve. But France and even 
England were faint and staggering under the heavy 
blows of the "mailed fist," and were calling loudly 
on us to come to their aid. And, I believe, Jesus 
Christ was calling us also. His Bride sorely 
wounded and bleeding was in mortal peril, and 
America her Guardian, must abandon at last her 
policy of isolation, and come across the seas to her 
rescue. I know not what services we shall be called 
upon to render in the future, with our larger 
vision of responsibility as the "Big brother" of all 
the nations of the world. We may be called to 



52 The Time of the End 

greater sacrifices and more strenuous efforts than 
we are now putting forth. If so our reward will be 
greater in the Kingdom of our Christ. "For I 
reckon that the sufferings of this present time are 
not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be 
revealed in us." Of this one thing I am sure, — 
that the Part of the United States in the great 
World-Crisis is to serve faithfully to the end as 
the Guardian of the Bride of Christ, until He shall 
come into His Kingdom and she his beautiful and 
radiant Queen shall be seated with Him upon His 
Throne. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE TIME OF THE EVENING LIGHT 

"And it shall come to pass in that day, that there 
shall not be light; the bright ones shall withdraw 
themselves — but at Evening-time there shall be 
light' 1 — Zechariah 14:6, 7, American Revision. 

I HAVE not given sufficient study to this chapter 
of Zechariah to attempt the explanation of other 
prophecies therein contained, but I believe them 
to be prophecies of these latter days, and that this par- 
ticular prediction refers to the period through which 
we are passing, and that which will immediately fol- 
low. So I have designated the Period of Restoration 
and Reconstruction following the Great War, as 
the Time of the Evening Light. The wonderful 
century or Prophetic "Day" that dawned upon the 
world in 1865 was wearing on toward the Eventide. 
To speak mathematically counting the hours it was 
late in the afternoon, about a quarter before six 
o'clock, when suddenly almost without warning 
there arose from the East a mighty Storm unprece- 
dented in its fury and the extent of its sweep — a 
veritable Cyclone, with violent wind and rattling 
hail, crashes of thunder, flashes of lightning, "fire 
mingled with blood and a great earthquake." Ap- 
parently after three years or three-fourths of a pro- 
phetic hour the storm has reached its height, al- 
though it is still furiously raging. But like all oth- 
53 



54 The Time of the End 

er storms it will in time pass by. It will leave in its 
track a vast amount of wreckage, and many and 
many a shattered home; but the wreckage will be 
cleared away and the homes rebuilt. After the 
Storm will be the Calm, and after the War the 
blessed Peace. How cheering is the assurance that 
"At Evening Time there shall be light!" 

Still we must remember that it is not the morn- 
ing but the Evening light. Night is to follow and 
all the prophets concur in the forecast that it will 
be very, very dark, the time of the "Great Tribu- 
lation," "Earth's Dreadful Night," of which Jesus 
said that "except those days shall be shortened there 
shall no flesh be saved, but for the elect's 
sake those days shall be shortened." And when that 
night is over a Day shall dawn upon the earth that 
shall never end. After a thousand years one 
threatening cloud will arise, but never a storm of 
war. There will also be a great Judgment Day, 
and then the "New Heavens and earth wherein 
dwelleth righteousness," and "there shall be no 
night there." But Night is still before us. Let 
us pray that the blessed Evening light may be pro- 
longed and let us work until the darkness falls, "for 
the night cometh wherein no man can work." 

It is not my place as an interpreter of prophecy 
to say very much about the times of peace following 
the great war. The only intimation I find in the 
prophecies is that Heaven will be ringing with the 
triumphal chorus, "The Kingdoms of the world 
have become the Kingdom of our Lord and His 
Christ and He shall reign forever and ever." May 



The Evening Light 55 

we not infer from this the recognition at least by all 
the contracting parties of the kingship of Jesus 
Christ; that He and He alone is the legitimate 
Sovereign of any nation and of all the nations of the 
world. Some one has said that there is much talk 
about the Christian nations, but there is no Chris- 
tian Nation and never has been. Very true; the 
nations are yet to be Christianized. Conventions 
and agreements may be of temporary value, but 
there can be no lasting peace except between Chris- 
tian nations. 

Neither am I led to say very much about the 
work of healing and restoring the bruised and 
bleeding and shattered peoples of the earth. In- 
demnities may be exacted from those who are 
deemed the guilty parties. Generous nations may 
help in this gracious work by appropriations for this 
purpose from their treasures. But these resources 
can only be adequate in a national sense. We read 
of a Tree of Life that grows beside a River that 
'flows from the Throne of God,' that the leaves of 
this Tree are for the 'Healing of the nations.' The 
gravest wounds of the war can only be healed by 
this heavenly medicine ministered by the loving 
hands and hearts of the people of Christ. I think 
it will be found true also, that while much may be 
done by the nations as such, a large part even of the 
money needed for this purpose will come from the 
voluntary contributions of Christian people. 

The Prophecies relating to this Period of Recon- 
struction are chiefly occupied with two subjects, 
the Sealing of the Saints and the Missionary and 



56 The Time of the End 

Evangelistic work of the Church. 

The Time of the Evening Light is especially the 
time of the Sealing of the Saints (Rev. 7:1-8 and 

14:1-5). 

In the First Chapter of this book I spoke of the 
War Program of Jesus Christ. I might have added 
what is perhaps the most important item of all, that 
Christ is teaching us in this war the meaning and 
measure of Christian Consecration. The early 
Christians understood this, but it has been almost 
forgotten and consecration had become an empty 
and almost meaningless word to multitudes of the 
professed disciples of Jesus Christ. Now He is 
teaching us by examples of patriotic devotion, of 
consecration to Country and to the great ideals of 
liberty and human brotherhood what Consecration 
means, what is its measure and what are its fruits. 
Let me give a few examples that have come to my 
attention. 

An Englishman of wealth, in conversation with 
an American was telling of the requirements of the 
English Government, 80 per cent, of excess War 
Profits, and 40 per cent., I think, of the remaining 
income. He expressed himself as not only willing 
but glad to be able to aid his country to this ex- 
tent, and to contribute besides more largely than 
ever before to religious work and the benevolences 
of the Church. I know of men in our land who do 
not intend to lay up anything during the war, but 
to give the whole of their income except what they 
need for the support of their families. 

The story is told of a lady of high rank among 



The Evening Light 57 

the nobility of England who was scrubbing the 
floors in a great Dining Hall where she had been 
waiting upon soldiers from the training camps, who 
were off for France. A friend of her set express- 
ing surprise at finding her engaged in such menial 
work, she replied that it afforded her great pleasure 
to be able to serve in any humble way those who 
were giving their all for England. Then after a 
moment's reflection she continued in a graver tone, 
"I have seen the handwriting on the wall; this is 
the time of the end for the Aristocracy; we must 
step down from our pedestals among the ranks of 
the common people, and I for one am glad of it." 

Now let us follow the English Tommies to the 
trenches. At the time of which I speak, there was 
selected daily what they called the ''Suicide Squad," 
that is the bomb throwers. Every morning an of- 
ficer would come around and choosing 30 or 40 of 
the best trained and most athletic young men would 
say, "You're for the suicide squad today." They 
would run out in open file and when near enough 
the German trenches would throw their bombs. In 
ten minutes it would all be over and half a dozen, 
perhaps, would return unwounded. One who visited 
the trenches and talked with officers and men reports 
that he could only learn of one instance of refusal, 
or even hesitation on the part of those men to go 
upon this dangerous service. Ralph Connor, now 
an officer of the Canadian troops, writes that he has 
learned in the trenches of Europe that there are no 
common men. There is a hero in every man, and 
by the devotion of men to their country and to the 



58 The Time of the End 

cause of freedom the Hero is released. Therefore, 
he says, there are no common men on the battle 
front today. 

I have taken these illustrations from a single na- 
tion; they might be multiplied many fold. Every- 
where in this time of emergency the call is coming 
louder and clearer, and daily louder and clearer, 
and men and women by the multiplied thousands are 
responding and are throwing wealth and rank and 
genius, and chief of all themselves, regardless of life 
or death, upon the altars of Freedom and native 
Land. Surely this also means to those who have 
the higher vision increased devotion to the kingdom 
of Christ. More and more this rising tide is be- 
coming a deep spiritual movement. And I look for 
it to roll on with increasing volume and power 
after the period of the war is at an end. Very sig- 
nificant is that Vision in Rev. 7:1-3 of a mighty 
Angel ascending from the Sunrising, having the Seal 
of the living God in His hand, and crying to other 
angels that have in charge certain drastic reforms, 
that the world sadly needs, "Wait! hurt not the 
earth — destroy not the trees nor any living thing, 
until we have Sealed the servants of God in their 
foreheads!" 

The meaning of this Sealing may be understood 
from two New Testament references. The first 
is John 6:27, where Jesus declares that the Son 
of Man is prepared to give the bread of Eternal 
Life to the world, for "Him hath God the Father 
Sealed." The Sealing of Jesus Christ was at His 
Baptism, when the Spirit in the form of a dove 



The Evening Light 59 

descended and abode upon Him, and a voice from 
Heaven proclaimed, "This is my beloved Son in 
whom I am well pleased." It is easy to see the re- 
lation of this sealing of Jesus to his personal con- 
secration. Jesus had at this time so fully dedi- 
cated himself to God, and to the Mission for which 
He was sent into the world, that there was never a 
moment in His subsequent life when he could not 
say, "My meat is to do the will of my Father and 
to finish His work," and when Satan came offering 
Him the kingdoms of the world and the glory of 
them if He would but step aside, the temptation, 
for it was a real temptation, glanced from Him like 
a poisoned arrow from a burnished shield. Being 
thus consecrated and Sealed He was qualified to give 
the Bread of Life to a hungry world. 

The other reference is Ephesians 1:13, "In whom 
after that ye believed, ye were Sealed with the Holy 
Spirit of promise." The disciple may be Sealed as 
well as the Master and in the same manner. Sealed 
with the Holy Spirit,' and sealed "in Him," that is 
in union and harmony with his Lord, being like 
Him devoted without reserve to God and His King- 
dom. 

This figure of the Sealing is taken, I think, from 
a custom that had grown up in connection with the 
Temple worship. The bullock, or lamb, brought 
for sacrifice must be inspected by the High Priest 
or some one appointed by him for the purpose, to 
make sure that it came up to the required standard 
— a male, young and healthful, and free from blem- 
ish. For convenience sake it became the custom to 



60 The Time of the End 

appoint special times for this inspection, when ani- 
mals were to be brought, and if they were passed, 
the seal of the High Priest was affixed to them. 
They were thus set apart or 'Sanctified' as offerings 
to the Lord and were not to be used for any other 
purpose. "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by 
the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies, a 
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is 
your spiritual service." Thus presenting ourselves, 
sincerely and truly, we are ''Sealed" as an accepta- 
ble offering to God. The Seal is the Holy Spirit. 

The Servants of God are "Sealed in their fore- 
heads" (Rev. 7:3). When a man is baptized by 
the Holy Spirit, people know it, as it was said of 
Jesus "He could not be hid," and as Moses' face, 
when he came down from the mount, shone, al- 
though he knew it not. This was the secret of the 
power of Mr. Moody. He was a man so filled 
with the Divine Spirit that men could see it shining 
in his face. There are such men among us today 
who have the seal of God in their foreheads. Their 
number is increasing, and it will continue to in- 
crease until they become a great army in the King- 
dom of God. 

Some of the characteristics of the sealed are 
described in Revelation 14:4, 5. "They are not 
defiled with women for they are virgins." It is 
evident that we cannot take these words in a strictly 
literal sense, for there are women as well as men in 
the great company of the Sealed. Of course they 
are free from this particular sin of physical and so- 
cial impurity, but we are not to infer that they are 



The Evening Light 6 1 

necessarily unmarried, or slackers in the duty of 
rearing children for the Kingdom of God. They 
are "Virgins unto the Lord," that is, they are not 
involved in the idolatries and harlotries that have 
marred the purity and beauty of the external or 
nominal church. The Harlot Church is a harlot 
because of her subservience to civil rulers and social 
powers, and powers of evil that lead her into un- 
holy alliances and idolatrous practices and unfaith- 
fulness to her King and Lord. Those who are 
sealed are free from these things. "They follow the 
Lamb withersoever He goeth" — anywhere, every- 
where, as the good soldier follows his leader in 
whom he trusts. Kerensky is reported to have said, 
"I bear within myself the seeds of death, and my 
time has been measured out. I will act quickly 
so that my darling Russia may be freed as soon as 
possible from her two most dangerous foes — Ger- 
many and anarchy. Nothing will hinder me in the 
fulfillment of my task, neither the threats of the one 
enemy nor the attempts on my life by the other. 
For after all, what do I care for my life? It is not 
mine, but Russia's." That is the spirit of the 
Sealed ; "My life is not mine but Christ's." Where 
He leads me I will follow — "whithersoever He 
goeth." 

"And in their mouth was no lie." In these days 
when lying and treachery are so rife, it is refresh- 
ing to turn to this description of the consecrated 
servants of Jesus Christ. They speak the truth in 
their hearts and "in their mouth is no guile." 

It is probable that the number of the Sealed in 



62 The Time of the End 



the coming days of the Evening light will be quite 
large. A little later we find them still gathered like 
a great army around their Leader. "He is King 
of kings and Lord of lords, and they that are with 
Him are called and chosen and faithful" (Rev. 
17:14). Their number is twice stated as 144,000, 
but I suppose we are to take this in a symbolical 
sense, as if the prophet had said 'the number of the 
sealed is large and complete.' As 666 is the largest 
prophetic number representing incompleteness and 
imperfection, so 144,000 is the highest number that 
stands for perfection and completeness. 

Who are they that are sealed? Literally, 12,000 
from each of the Tribes of Israel. But ten of these 
are Lost Tribes. Nobody knows who they are or 
where they are to be found. Very likely John did 
not know much more about it than we do. In fact, 
to include both the Tribes of Joseph and the Tribe 
of Levi also, he carelessly left out the Tribe of Dan, 
showing that he did not esteem the accuracy of the 
list a matter of much importance. Several books 
have been written, some of them characterized by 
considerable learning and ingenuity to prove that 
the English or people of other nationalities are 
descendants of certain of the Lost Tribes, and not 
a few people have been deeply interested in these 
speculations, trying to satisfy themselves that they 
are thus descended and may therefore be included 
in the 144,000. But all this is useless labor. The 
true Israel of God are not limited to any nationality 
or stock. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there 
is neither male nor female — all are one in Christ 



The Evening Light 63 

Jesus." Offer yourself to God as men are offering 
themselves to their country today, and He will Seal 
you with His Holy Spirit — you shall bear in your 
very forehead and in your hands, the marks of the 
Lord Jesus. 

I think, however, there is a special significance in 
this prophecy of the Sealing of the Jews and their 
appearance on Mount Zion under the lead of our 
Christ. James in the Council at Jerusalem, quot- 
ing from Amos and interweaving the substance of 
other Old Testament prophecies, says, "It is writ- 
ten — After these things I will return and will build 
again the Tabernacle of David which is fallen — 
that the residue of men may seek after the Lord, 
even all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called" 
(Acts 15:16, 17). Paul also says, ''It is written 
— there shall come out of Zion the Deliverer who 
shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob — for if the 
casting away of them is the reconciling of the world, 
what shall the receiving of them be but life from 
the dead?" (Romans 11:26, 27 and verse 15). I 
almost tremble with the joy of anticipation as I ven- 
ture to say to myself — the time is at hand for these 
great prophecies to be fulfilled. After the close of 
the war and the arranging of the terms of peace, 
a large number of Jews and Israelites will acknowl- 
edge Jesus Christ as their Messiah. Their conver- 
sion in most cases will be no half-way measure — 
they will be converted and sealed as Saints of God. 
Jerusalem will be rebuilt. It will become the cen- 
ter of a great Jewish-Christian Republic — a Holy 
City indeed radiating the light of Christian truth 



64 The Time of the End 

and love through all the earth. May God hasten the 
day ! 

Immediately after the description of the Sealed 
in Revelation 14th, there follows another Vision 
briefly told, yet of very great significance, "And I 
saw another angel fly in the midst of the heaven, 
having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them 
that dwell on the earth, to every nation and kin- 
dred and tongue and people" (v. 6). 

I like that phrase, the "Everlasting Gospel." 
When we speak of the present Age as the "Gospel 
Dispensation" we may seem to imply that there will 
be no gospel in the Millennial days. Not so; men 
will be sinning and suffering then, and will need 
the "Old, old story of Jesus and His love" for com- 
fort and healing as we need it today. Even in the 
Eternal Ages that follow, when the Curse is re- 
moved and the nations are walking in the light of 
the Heavenly Jerusalem the "Leaves of the Tree 
of Life which are for the healing of the nations," 
will be scattered everywhere, and in Heaven itself 
the redeemed will be forever singing of the Lamb 
of God who "loved us and washed us from our sins 
in His own blood and has made us kings and priests 
unto God." Perhaps it may also be implied in the 
phrase the 'Everlasting Gospel' that there are new 
meanings discovered in the Gospel Message making 
it sweeter and stronger than ever before, and there- 
fore the everlasting Gospel. We shall have a mes- 
sage given us that is suited to every nation, and to 
every inhabitant of the earth ; a message that will be 
needed and that will never cease to be proclaimed 



The Evening Light 65 

while the Eternal Ages roll. I think we have also 
in this vision a picture of intense and widespread 
activity on the part of the people of God. Surely 
this great company of the Sealed is not gathered 
simply for their own enjoyment and profit in the 
spiritual life. We have here the prophecy as I 
believe of a great Missionary and Evangelistic Cam- 
paign such as the world as never seen before, car- 
ried on in every land, by a vast army of consecrated 
men and women and boys and girls under the per- 
sonal lead of Christ himself, until the Great Com- 
mission has been fulfilled and the Gospel has not 
only been preached in every land, but has been 
brought in some personal way to every dweller upon 
the globe. Will this Vision be realized? After 
the awful Storm of War has cleared away and the 
wreckage has been disposed of to some extent, there 
will come the calm and the blessed Peace. This 
will be the Time of the Evening Light, of the Seal- 
ing of the Saints and the great undertaking of the 
Church to give the gospel to the whole world. A 
time so favorable there never has been and will not 
be again until evil has spent its force, the Judgments 
of God are completed and the glory of the 'Latter 
days' is dawning upon the earth. God grant that 
the Church may arise to her opportunities and that 
the Time of the Evening Light may be so pro- 
longed that the dreadful Night which must follow 
shall be but brief. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE DESTROYERS OF THE EARTH 

THESE are Five in number. The Dragon, 
the Beast, the False Prophet, the Harlot, and 
Babylon, all of whom must be destroyed from 
the face of the earth before the Kingdom of Christ 
can be fully established. I will reserve the consid- 
eration of two of these, Babylon and the False 
Prophet or the Antichrist for the two succeeding 
chapters, and will now proceed to review the his- 
tory of the other three, the Dragon, the Harlot and 
the Beast as it is given to us in the Book of the 
Revelation. 

i. The Dragon is the Devil. He, of course, is 
the leader of the gang, and his malign activity un- 
derlies that of all the rest. His story is chiefly to 
be found in the twelfth chapter. He is described 
as "Red" in color and as having "seven heads and 
ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads," show- 
ing his close resemblance and almost complete iden- 
tification with the Beast to whom a similar descrip- 
tion is applied. In verses 7 to 12 we are told that 
there was once a great war in heaven, in which 
Satan, who, as the "Accuser of the brethren," had 
been permitted to appear in the very presence of 
God Himself, (see Job 1:1-12), was utterly de- 
feated and cast down from all heavenly places where 
he had previously ranged at will, to our earth. This 
encounter seems to have been at the Ascension of 
66 



The Destroyers 67 



Christ. Our Lord a few days before his cruci- 
fixion, speaking in prophetic anticipation of this 
great victory said, "I saw Satan as lightning fall 
from heaven." Being thus cast out from the heav- 
enly regions he came to earth in great wrath "know- 
ing that his time was short," and that he would 
presently be cast out from earth also, and hell would 
be the only sphere of his activity and power. In 
those persecutions that led to the second flight of 
the Church across the sea, he was the instigator and 
the chief agent. At a later period (Rev. 16:13-16) 
we read of three foul spirits, one of them coming out 
of his mouth, who went forth to the nations, incit- 
ing them to combine in opposition to the advancing 
Kingdom of Christ, and to break the peace a second 
time in a great world war, which should be fought 
to its close at Armageddon. The Dragon is the 
last of the Destroyers of earth to survive, but at the 
end he also meets his doom. A mighty angel with 
a great chain in his hand comes down from Heav- 
en, lays hold upon the Dragon, binds him, and 
casts him into the pit of the abyss where he re- 
mains for a thousand years. He is then loosed for 
a little season only, after which he never again ap- 
pears upon the earth. 

2. The next one of the Destroyers of earth of 
which I shall speak is the Harlot or the Harlot 
Church. Her alliance for a thousand years with 
the Empire of Rome, though a bad thing for her, 
was in some respects a good thing for the world, as 
she succeeded to some degree in moderating the 
cruel disposition and taming the savage heart of the 



68 The Time of the End 

old Roman Beast. In recent years, as is often the 
case with women when they grow older, she does 
not seem to have so much success in this line. It 
should also be observed that the unhallowed rela- 
tions of the Harlot Church in more recent times are 
with Two of the Destroyers of the earth, the Beast 
and Baylon, and this also is indicated in the proph- 
ecies of the Revelation. So intimate is her union 
with the latter that they sometimes seem to be iden- 
tified with each other, so that we can hardly tell 
which one John is speaking of. Babylon is the 
Harlot and the Harlot is Babylon. But we shall 
understand this whole matter better, I think, by 
dropping these figures for awhile and giving a few 
concrete illustrations. 

One of the most 'saintly' men of the Middle 
Ages, if such a fanatic can be called a saint, was 
Torquemada, Inquisitor general of Spain, by 
whose orders it is said nearly 9,000 persons, among 
them many of the choicest and most enlightened 
men and women of the day were burned alive, or 
stretched upon the rack and tortured until they died. 
Torquemada was not a fiend. He was not vindic- 
tive or malevolent. He was a most devoted son of 
the Church, and to him every one of those awful 
murders was an "Auto da Fe," an act of Faith and 
even an act of kindness to the poor sufferer. For 
he believed that the everlasting torments of Hell 
were so much greater, that these tortures he inflicted 
were as nothing in comparison, and if even one of a, 
hundred of his victims would renounce his heresy 
in the very article of death it would more than com- 



The Destroyers 69 



pensate for all this suffering. Besides he hoped 
and expected so to cursh out heresy, that thousands 
and perhaps millions of souls would be saved in the 
end from the fires of hell. 

One of the most 'saintly' men of the present day 
is Prof. Herrmann, of Marburgh, Germany. He 
has written a book called "The Communion of the 
Christian with God," which Dr. Horton, of Eng- 
land, has called. "The most valuable contribution to 
theology and religion that has come from any single 
writer in the last thirty years." But this same 
Prof. Herrmann is the leading apologist in Germany 
for the Armenian massacre. He has gone so far as 
to write and publish the view that the Germans are 
properly allied with the Turks, so that the two na- 
tions may carry out their beneficent purpose of im- 
posing their kultur upon the rest of mankind. It 
is known that Germany planned and favored these 
fiendish massacres of the Christian population of 
Turkey. When the Turks protested that the schol- 
ars and rich merchants and skilled artisans among 
the Armenians would be needed in Turkey after 
the war, Germany said no, these are the most dan- 
gerous of all. Do not hesitate to "deport" these 
first of all, and Germans will come in and take 
their places. And the good old saint Prof. Herr- 
mann is one of the leading promoters of these 
atrocities. Such men as Torquemada and Herr- 
mann are the strange progeny of the Harlot Church 
in her alliance with the Beast. 

In Revelation 17:16, 17 we learn how the Har- 
lot is finally 'disposed of. The 'Ten Horns' or na- 



70 The Time of the End 

tions forming the Seventh Empire "shall hate the 
Harlot and shall make her desolate and naked, and 
shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire. For God 
hath put it into their hearts to fulfill His will and 
to agree and give their kingdom to the Beast, until 
the words of God shall be fulfilled. " This seems 
to be her end, at least we read nothing more con- 
cerning her. I understand by this prophecy that 
several of the nations will conceive a violent hatred 
for the Apostate Church and will treat her some- 
what as France treated the Church of Rome, except 
in a more thorough and drastic fashion; that they 
will despoil her of her endowments and accumulated 
treasures, will destroy, perhaps, her cathedrals and 
monasteries, will take from her all State support, 
and harass and persecute her in every possible way. 
This treatment will be fatal to the false Church, 
and will be a detriment, no doubt, for a time to the 
true Church, the Bride of Christ. But in the end 
she will be purified and refined, and will shine forth 
in greater beauty and glory. 

3. The Beast. In the Book of the Revelation two 
Beasts are spoken of. The First corresponding to 
Daniel's terrible Fourth Beast, is the Roman Em- 
pire. This is evident; I think, from Revelation 
17:8, 10, where the forms of expression are quite 
enigmatical, but the meaning appears to be that the 
Seven Hills on which Rome was built are typical 
of the Seven Heads of the Beast which in turn rep- 
resent Seven Empires, springing up successively 
among the nations which once constituted the Em- 
pire of Rome. I shall speak of these Empires later 



The Destroyers 71 



on. Both the First Beast of the Revelation and the 
Fourth Beast of Daniel are represented as having 
Ten Horns corresponding to the ten Toes of the 
great Image in Daniel's former vision. These rep- 
resent the nations that once formed the Roman Em- 
pire. There is an interesting prediction about these 
nations in Daniel 2 140-43. Like the iron toes of 
the image, separated by potter's clay, they are to re- 
main distinct and separate until the coming of the 
Kingdom of God. ''They shall mingle themselves 
with the seed of men, but shall not cleave one to 
another." How true this is! There have been nu- 
merous intermarriages across their borders from roy- 
alty down. There have been migrations and alli- 
ances and conquests, but they continue separate and 
distinct. Even Poland, divided time and again and 
absorbed by other nations still retains its national 
characteristics and aspirations, and the same is true 
of the nationalities of which the Austrian Empire is 
composed. America is the Melting-pot wherein peo- 
ple of every nation are blended together in one ; but 
there never has been any melting-pot to blend to- 
gether any of the nations of Europe. 

In Revelation 13:11 the Apostle sees another 
Beast coming up not like the first out of the Sea of 
"peoples, nations and languages," but out of the 
earth. This is the Beast with which we are specially 
concerned ; for the old Roman Empire is dead, but 
this second Beast is very much alive indeed and is 
making great havoc in the world today. Let me tell 
in my own way, in a sort of Parable gathered partly 
from history, and partly from the symbolism of pro- 



72 The Time of the End 

phecy, the story of this singular Beast. It was born 
in the forests of Germany, in the breasts of those 
brave men, who under Charles Martel the "Ham- 
mer of God" drove back the barbarian hordes that 
were over-running Europe. Its foster-father was 
Charlemagne, who founded for it quite an exten- 
sive Empire. In those days it was a well-mannered 
young creature who never came into serious colli- 
sion with the old Roman Beast. No indeed! for 
was it not a good Christian Beast, and the Pope at 
that time sat on the Throne of the Empire. So 
when it first appears it is in the form of a Lamb, 
having Two Horns, as a lamb should, Germany and 
France. When the Roman Empire came to an end 
in 1299 this Beast became its successor and heir, and 
it began to roam about more widely over all the 
States of Europe. Its disposition was gradually 
changing, and it was learning to imitate the growl 
of the old Beast and was constantly holding up its 
image before men that they should worship it. Peter 
the Great brought this strange beast to Russia and 
built a fine city for its lair which is now called Pet- 
rograd. Here it was known as the Russian Bear. 
In England it was called the British Lion and we 
have heard its roar in the "Rule Brittania." In 
France it rose to great power in the person of Na- 
poleon Bonaparte. At last it was called back to 
Germany its native country where a vast stronghold 
commenced by Frederick the Great and completed 
by Bismark and Kaiser Wilhelm, has been erected 
for it at great cost and with wonderful scientific 
skill. Here as old age is coming on and its end is 



The Destroyers 73 



drawing near it has become more savage and sullen, 
and is causing a great deal of trouble in the world. 
If any will not worship the Image of the old Beast 
and receive his mark in their forehead or their hand 
they are threatened with torture and death. 

Who or what is this singular Beast whose story I 
have been relating? It is not an Empire as were all 
the other Beasts of Prophecy. It is only a "Simu- 
lacrum" or Image, a "Zeitgeist" as the Germans 
would say. It is the spirit of old Rome surviving 
among the so-called Christian Nations of Europe, 
the Iron in the Toes after the Iron Legs of the Im- 
age have been broken. Some would call it "Mili- 
tarism" or the "War Beast" but neither of these 
names are adequate. It is the "Blood and Iron" of 
Bismarck, the "Will to Power" of Nietzsche, the 
desire and purpose to dominate and rule, to obtain 
and exercise universal Imperial Power at any cost 
and any hazard, after the manner of ancient Rome. 
This is the Second Beast of the Revelation. It is 
one of the Five Destroyers of the earth that must be 
destroyed before the Kingdom of God can come. 

What is meant by the Mark of the Beast? This is 
a question that has greatly puzzled the Commenta- 
tors, as there is no explanation given of it in the 
prophecy. Perhaps we may learn something by way 
of contrast. When the Followers of Christ are 
"Sealed in their foreheads" several marks are put 
upon them, as Purity, Truthfulness, Devotion to 
Christ, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. So the 
Mark of the Beast in the forehead or hand may be 
one or more of several things as Ambition, Cruelty 



74 The Time of the End 

Hatred, Impurity, Lying. The last of these Marks 
is becoming very conspicuous at the present time. I 
have no disposition to judge too harshly the 95 dis- 
tinguished Professors of German Universities who 
signed a paper containing the statements "It is not 
true that Germany has injured Belgium. It is not 
true that German soldiers have harmed the life of 
any Belgian." Among the signatures to these state- 
ments were the lately honored names of Har- 
nack and Eucken. Perhaps they were ignorant or 
misinformed, or in a moment of weakness yielded to 
the dictation of the higher powers. If so they may 
still have the opportunity of wiping off the brand of 
the Beast from their hands by a public retraction. 
Archbishop Cranmer, threatened not with loss of 
place and salary alone, but with loss of life, signed 
a retraction of his former declaration of adhesion 
to the Protestant faith. But he repented bitterly of 
his cowardly act and openly repudiated it. And 
when he was brought to the stake, he thrust the of- 
fending right hand first into the flames that it might 
be consumed before the life should depart from his 
body. Lying, under orders from despotic or auto- 
cratic powers, is certainly one of the Marks of the 
Beast and God will not suffer such liars to go un- 
punished. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE SEVEN VIALS 

I. The Prelude. — Revelation 14:6 to 75:8. 

THE Visions of the Seven Vials or Bowls of 
Wrath remind us very much of those discussed 
in Chapter II under the heading, "The Sev- 
en Trumpets or Scenes and Incidents of the great 
War." They belong, however, to a later period 
which begins with the disturbances preceding the 
Fall of Babylon. In Rev. 15:1 we read that these 
are the last plagues, and that in them is filled up 
the wrath of God, and in 16:16 we have the proph- 
ecy of Armageddon. We conclude therefore that 
the period of these visions extends to the time of 
that great battle. They are placed before the vi- 
sion of Babylon's Fall, because their fulfillment be- 
gins before that catastrophe occurs. 

As a preliminary to the Seven Vials are the Sev- 
en Proclamations of Chapter 14. The first of these 
is that of the Angel having the Everlasting Gospel 
to be preached to every dweller upon the earth, who 
also urges haste, for the Evening Light is waning 
and the Hour of Judgment is at hand. The Second 
Proclamation is of the Fall of Babylon. The Third 
is the denunciation of woe upon the worshippers 
of the Beast. The judgment pronounced upon them 
is severe in the extreme, "If any man worshipeth the 
Beast and his Image and receiveth a Mark on his 
75 



76 The Time of the End 

forehead or in his hand ; he also shall drink of the 
wine of the wrath of God which is poured out 
without mixture in the cup of His indignation, and 
he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in 
the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence 
of the Lamb ; and the smoke of their torment goeth 
up forever and ever; and they have no rest day or 
night, that worship the Beast and his Image, and 
whoso receiveth the mark of his name. Here is the 
patience of the saints they that keep the command- 
ments of God and the faith of Jesus" (vs. 9-12). 

The Fourth proclamation is a message of hope 
and comfort to those who must suffer or die for the 
sake of their Christ. "Blessed are the dead that 
die in the Lord from henceforth ; yea saith the Spir- 
it that they may rest from their labors; for their 
works follow with them." 

The other three proclamations have reference to 
reaping the harvest and gathering the vintage of the 
earth that is fully ripe. The chapter closes with 
these words, "And the angel cast his sickle into the 
earth and gathered in the vintage of the earth and 
cast it into the winepress, the great winepress of the 
wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden 
without the city ; and there came out blood from the 
winepress, even unto the bridles of the horses, as 
far as a thousand and six hundred furlongs." This 
seems to be a foreshadowing of the great battle of 
Armageddon. 

The Fifteenth chapter need not detain us long. 
It is the Prelude properly speaking to the Visions of 
the Vials. First we see the Victors or Overcomers 



The Seven Vials 77 

standing by the Sea of Glass with the harps of God 
in their hands, singing the Song of Moses and the 
Lamb. 

"Great and marvellous are thy works O Lord 
God Almighty. Just and true are thy ways thou 
King of the ages. Who shall not fear thee O Lord 
and glorify thy name ? For thou only are holy ; all 
nations shall come and worship before thee ; for thy 
righteous acts have been made manifest." 

The Temple is then opened and Seven Angels 
come forth clad in pure white garments with gir- 
dles of gold; to them are given the seven golden 
Vials filled with the wrath of God which they are 
to pour upon the earth. 

2. The Visions of the Vials. — Revelation, Chap- 
ter 1 6. 

The first four of these seven visions are similar to 
the corresponding visions announced by the Trump- 
eters of Heaven, which I have already commented 
upon. Four angels successively pour their Vials 
upon the earth, the sea, the rivers, and the sun. In 
the Vision of the Sea, as I have before observed, 
there is no figure corresponding to that of the Burn- 
ing mountain, an indication, perhaps, that the day 
of Submarines is over. In the previous vision of 
the rivers and springs of water, they were made 
bitter and poisonous by the falling of the Star 
Wormwood; in this their waters are turned into 
blood. In the former vision the Sun was darkened ; 
in this it scorches men with its heat — the judgments 
of God have become more severe and more personal 



78 The Time of the End 

than before. As to the Moon and Stars no mention 
is made of them in the later vision. Perhaps the 
Stars have all fallen, and as for the Moon, our 
poor world has become so dark that its light can no 
longer be seen. 

The Fifth Vial is poured out upon the Seat of the 
Beast and his kingdom is darkened. Rome the orig- 
inal "Seat of the Beast" may be indicated. Or it 
may be the city where he is now holding his court 
and exerting his influence and power. In either case 
the Beast is greatly weakened and seems almost to 
have disappeared from view. But he revives again 
and appears upon the scene ready for the fray as we 
shall see hereafter. 

The Seventh Vision is in part at least a Prelude 
to the Fall of Babylon and will be referred to under 
that topic. The great Air Raid described in verse 
21 may possibly be connected with the Judgment 
that falls upon the "Seat of the Beast." If so, some 
Capital City of Europe is to be destroyed or greatly 
damaged in this manner. Is it Rome? Is it Berlin? 
Is it Constantinople? Who can tell? 

3. The Seventeenth Chapter which also precedes 
the Vision of Babylon's Fall consists of a series of 
Enigmas, which, if we can solve them, contain a 
great deal of history, mostly a forecasting of events 
still in the future. It may be regarded as a continu- 
ation of Chapters 12 and 13 which are also History 
in Enigma mostly of events of the past. In the first 
part of this chapter Babylon, and the Beast and the 
Harlot are so mixed up and blended together, just as 



The Seven Vials 79 



they are in the life of the world today, that one can 
hardly tell "which is which," as the saying goes. But 
in the end, Babylon comes out as at least the lead- 
ing Figure. Her Name appears written upon the 
forehead of the "Woman riding upon the Beast" — 
"Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Har- 
lots and Abominations of the Earth." So I suppose 
it is Babylon the Apostle is chiefly intending to de- 
scribe. Next is the Enigma, partially solved, of the 
Seven Heads and Ten Horns of the Beast, that is 
the old Roman Beast, and the Prophecy of the Sev- 
enth Empire which is to be considered hereafter. 
Finally in Enigma we have described the Judgment 
upon the Harlot before referred to and also a state- 
ment respecting Babylon whose Fall comes next in 
the prophetic order. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE FALL OF BABYLON 

"And there followed another Angel saying 
Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great City, because 
she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath 
of her fornication." 

The Proclamation of the Second Angel, Revela- 
tion 14:8. 

WHAT is Babylon? This is one of the puz- 
zling questions of the Revelation. Some say 
Babylon is Rome. I agree and nearly all ex- 
positors agree that Ancient Rome is the Type, but I 
do not agree that either Modern Rome or the Cath- 
olic Church is the Anti-type. Rome sat for the pho- 
tograph so to speak but the picture has no 
resemblance to Rome of the present day. A re- 
cent commentator has expressed the thought by 
saying that "Mystery, Babylon" (Rev. 17:5) 
is Rome but not the Babylon that is to be 
destroyed. Others say that a great City is yet to 
be built on the site of Ancient Babylon and this is 
the city whose fall is predicted in the Revelation. 
I consider this hypothesis as needless and altogether 
improbable. Why should capitalists expend large 
sums of money in building up a great city in a short 
space of time on the site of Ancient Babylon? Bag- 
dad only thirty miles away was a great city once, 
and it is again rising to importance as the terminus 
80 



The Fall of Babylon 81 

of the European Railroad. Why build up a rival 
city against which would stand a prophetic threat 
of speedy and complete overthrow and destruction? 

This hypothesis that Babylon is to be rebuilt is 
contrary to the ancient prophecies. Isaiah's pro- 
phecy is already fulfilled. The site of ancient Baby- 
lon is a desolate spot grown up in a tangled thicket 
where aquatic birds, "the cormorant and the bit- 
tern," have their haunts and wade in "pools of 
water." Jeremiah says emphatically and repeats it 
three times that it shall be "desolate forever," and 
the natural inference is that Babylon will never be 
rebuilt. A third reason for rejecting this hypothe- 
sis is that Babylon if rebuilt could not be a Mara- 
time City. In the olden time small boats could sail 
up the Euphrates to its wharves, but as ocean com- 
merce is now carried on it could never be the great 
seaport that is pictured in Rev. 18:17, 18 if the pic- 
ture is of a city at all. 

But why is it necessary to suppose that Babylon 
is a city in the literal sense? If a Beast in prophecy 
is an Empire and a Harlot a Church, why may not 
a City represent a Civilization? I believe that this 
is the case. In the first place Babylon stands for the 
Civilization of ancient Rome; then it is the Roman 
or pagan civilization, transferred and interwoven 
into the civilization of the present day. During the 
first months of the war, many articles were written 
on the "Collapse of Civilization" and some on the 
"Collapse of Christian Civilization." The idea being 
that a structure reared by centuries of toil and pains 
had collapsed in a moment like a punctured balloon 



82 The Time of the End 

at the first onslaught of a recrudescent barbarism. 
Begging the pardon of the excellent gentleman who 
wrote these articles I totally deny that Christian 
Civilization has collapsed at all, for there was no 
such thing as Christian civilization in International 
relations. What collapsed were the weak restraints 
that Christian sentiment had tried to impose upon 
a civilization essentially Pagan. What is true of 
Internationalism is largely true of the whole struc- 
ture of society. Some of the elements of the old civi- 
lization have been eliminated, others have been great- 
ly modified. Many restraints of law and of custom 
have been imposed, and when we look at our mod- 
ern civilization we proudly call it a Christian Civ- 
ilization, but there are some parts of it that are no 
more modern or Christian than an old house is new 
because it has a fresh coat of paint. The founda- 
tions and framework of the old structure are the 
same as ever. As the Beast of today represents the 
Spirit of old Rome, surviving among the so-called 
Christian nations of Europe, so Babylon represents 
the Civilization of old Rome — the Pagan elements 
remaining in what we call Christian Civilization. 
In this sense, Babylon is one of the Destroyers of 
mankind. It must be destroyed, its wall and 
strongholds must fall before the Kingdom of God 
can come. 

The last of the Seven Vials as I have before ob- 
served, may be regarded as a prelude to the Fall of 
Babylon. In this Vision we are told of a great 
Earthquake that shook Babylon to its foundations, 
and divided it into Three Parts. These three parts 



The Fall of Babylon 83 

of Babylon which are now more clearly disclosed 
than ever before, may be thus enumerated. 1. The 
Moral. 2. The Political and Social. 3. The Eco- 
nomical. 

I. The Great Moral Evils. 

The first part of Babylon has already suffered 
greatly from the onslaughts of Christianity, though 
some of its strongest walls and fortresses are still 
undemolished. Rev. Dr. Hillis some years ago 
called our attention to the fact that of the Eleven 
great Evils that led to the downfall of Rome, ac- 
cording to the Historian Gibbon, Eight had already 
been eliminated, or nearly so, from the civilized 
world. Within my own recollection two of the 
greater evils, Polygamy and Slavery, and two of the 
minor ones, Duelling and the Public Lottery, have 
almost totally disappeared. In some cases the 
process of elimination has been simply the growth 
of public sentiment, but this has generally been 
supplemented by Legislation, which cut out the 
cancer from the body politic as by a few sharp 
strokes of the knife. The law, however, was never 
effective until the public sentiment was back of it. 
In one instance, that of Slavery, Babylon fell with 
a great crash, as if shaken by an Earthquake — pro- 
phetic of the Fall that is yet to be. Just before the 
opening of the Civil War a group of men were dis- 
cussing the impending troubles; many pessimistic 
views were expressed, especially in regard to Sla- 
very, which some thought could never be destroyed 
and would always remain a menace to the nation. 



84 The Time of the End 

An old negro preacher who had been listening to the 
conversation raised himself erect to his full height, 
and like one of the prophets of old with flashing 
eye and vibrant voice gave utterance to these words, 
"Brudders, don't you be afraid. Babylon is gwine 
to fall. Its just got to fall, the Bible says so." It 
was not long before the soldiers as they marched to 
the front were singing the new Battle Hymn of the 
Republic. 

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the Coming of 
the Lord 
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes 

of wrath were stored 
He has loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible 
swift sword 
His truth is marching on!" 

Then came the Emancipation Proclamation and 
the Freedmen were singing: 

"Babylon is falling! Babylon is falling! 
And we're going to occupy the land!" 

Yes Slavery fell although many thought this 
could never be, and there is no Evil so strongly 
intrenched that it cannot be destroyed also. "Baby- 
lon is gwine to fall; its just got to fall; the Bible 
says so." 

One of the great outstanding Evils of recent days 
is the Liquor Traffic, but it does not take much of a 
prophet to foresee that its end is at hand. Twenty 



The Fall of Babylon 85 

years ago if the question was asked, when will In- 
temperance cease ? When will the manufacture and 
sale of intoxicating drinks be suppressed, nine out 
of ten men would answer, 'Never! it cannot be; it 
is impossible.' Ever since the days of Noah, drunk- 
ness has been fearfully prevalent in the world. The 
Reign of King Alcohol has been long and terrible. 
His victims have outnumbered those of the three 
great scourges of mankind, War, Famine and Pest- 
ilence, all combined. But his throne is tottering to. 
its fall. Never have such heavy blows been rained 
upon it as in the last three years since the war be- 
gan. Mankind are beginning to understand at last 
that if nations are to survive at all they must rid 
themselves of the curse of Drink, and that no half- 
way measures will avail. It is my expectation that 
before many years have passed we will be singing in 
triumph over the disappearance of this great evil 
and curse of mankind, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen! 
that great City whose merchandise was the bodies 
and souls of men!" 

And then there is that other great Evil, greater 
perhaps than that of Drink, which we call the So- 
cial Evil. It may be that sexual impurity and sin 
will never wholly cease even in the Millennial days, 
until all the inhabitants of earth are Sealed of the 
Spirit as the spotless Bride of Christ. The worst 
form of this evil, however, that which we call 
White Slavery or commercialized vice, can and I be- 
lieve will ere long be overcome and destroyed. This 
will be a long step toward the final goal. Then if 
the great Black Plague — the leprosy in the blood of 



86 The Time of the End 

so great a part of the human race, can be stamped 
out, the walls of this Babylon will be pretty thor- 
oughly demolished. This last is one of the most 
difficult problems that Science and Legislation and 
Christianity have to solve. But solved it must be 
or the nations will perish in their sin. 

2. The Second Section of Babylon I have desig- 
nated for want of a better phrase as the Political 
and Social, or the "Politico-Social" to speak in more 
scientific terms. There are two types of Govern- 
ment that are undemocratic and inimical to the 
Kingdom of God, — the Beast type and the Babylon 
type. The Government of Russia before the fall 
of the Czar was the worst modern example of the 
former; that of France before the Revolution, of 
the latter. It makes very little difference whether 
the imperial government of France under the reign 
of Louis XIV and Louis XV was tyrannical and 
autocratic, or mild and beneficent. The cruel op- 
pressions and wrongs and outrages which the peo- 
ple suffered and which they resented were those 
inflicted by the nobility and aristocracy of France. 
They hated the monarchs, not as tyrants or auto- 
crats, but because they were Aristocrats and heads 
of the Aristocracy. "Down with the Aristocrats! 
kill them! let not one of the hellish brood escape!" 
was the slogan of the Peasantry and Prolatariat 
in the Revolution. The Apostle John might have 
described the French Revolution, and possibly did 
describe it as "a great Earthquake" in which Baby- 
lon was shaken to its foundations "and a part of the 
City fell." 



The Fall of Babylon 87 

If Germany today is ruled by the Beast, England 
in large measure is, or has been, before the war, 
under the sway of Babylon, and the same thing is 
true for that matter of our own land. England 
boasts of her Democracy and joins with France and 
America and the regenerated Russia in the great 
crusade iu\y ' ■ Triumph of Democracy in the earth. 
So far as mere government is concerned the boast 
is justifiable. The King of England may have in- 
fluence in government, but he has no authority; he 
reigns but he does not rule. There was a time 
when England was ruled by her Aristocracy, but 
more and more the power has been transferred to 
the House of Commons until it has come to pass 
that practically the people of England do rule. It 
may be also admitted that England's Aristocracy as 
a class are the best type the world has ever pro- 
duced. Still it remains true that the Aristocracy 
of England constitute a Caste or Class who by their 
prestige, their special privileges and the glamor of 
rank and title do possess an enormous and prepond- 
ing influence and power, both political and social. 
The King of England may not rule, but as the Head 
of the Aristocracy and the Established Church he is 
by no means a cipher. Allied with the Aristocracy 
are the men of large wealth, many of whom, even the 
rich Brewers who are doing so much to debase and 
destroy the people, are receiving patents of nobil- 
ity. The result is that England up to the period 
of the war existed chiefly for the welfare and ag- 
grandizement of her Upper Classes, while the great 
body of her people have been left to struggle up- 



88 The Time of the End 

ward as best they could through many hindrances 
and discouragements. The comparison of England 
with Germany in this respect is very unfavorable 
to the former country. It is undeniable that from 
a material point of view at least Germany has 
sought the welfare of all her people rather than any 
particular class, and has been successf tia in this be- 
yond any other nation. This is partly what the 
Germans mean when they insist upon the superiority 
of their "Kultur." We do not like their methods; 
we will not allow them to propagate their Kultur 
by overrunning the weaker nations, deporting their 
inhabitants and taking possession of their territory. 
Still there are some things in the German Kultur 
and some elements in the German character from 
which valuable lessons might be learned by other 
nations of the world. 

A nation of the Babylon type is almost sure to 
develop a Church of the Babylon type, especially if 
it has a State Church as is the case in nearly all the 
nations of Europe. The Countess of Warwick has 
recently published a Book entitled, "The New Re- 
ligion," which contains a strong indictment of the 
Established Church of England. She says, "In 
every phase and aspect of its work, the Church has 
found itself somewhere below the heights of each 
vital occasion ; it has not taken a lead . where it 
could follow one, or voiced the needs of the people 
where silence and a non-committal attitude could 
suffice. The heads of the Established Church, with 
one or two brilliant exceptions, do not know any- 
thing of the actualities of the world they live in; 



The Fall of Babylon 89 

they do not dare to know ; their training has stereo- 
typed their minds; the present state of the world 
has left them not only unprepared, but quite hope- 
less to cope with it. There is much to suggest that 
the Established Church is conserving its courage for 
the post-bellum task of preaching the old platitudes, 
and asking those who have seen war or suffered 
by it, to take them seriously. Peace has its massa- 
cres as well as war, and to most of these massacres, 
whether by drink, disease or poverty or vice, the 
Established Church has been a spectator, if the term 
can be applied to that which has eyes but sees not, 
ears but hears not, and a mouth in which most ut- 
terances are platitudinous." If this indictment be 
true, the Church of England has indeed become an 
Harlot of the Babylon type. In my humble opinion 
England will never be ready to receive the Kingdom 
of God until her Church is disestablished, and her 
Royalty and Autocracy are no more. Listen to the 
words of our King, "Ye know that the princess of 
the gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they 
that are great exercise authority upon them, but it 
shall not be so among you." "Be not called 
'Master' for one is your Master even Christ, and all 
ye are brethren!' 

Let me quote as expressive of my own thought 
from a review of this book in the "Christian 
Work:" 

"The Countess of Warwick has given us a strik- 
ing revelation of the things that are going on in the 
world. To hear a great lady — bearer of a historic 
name, wearer of the ermine, mistress of a famuos 



90 The Time of the End 

castle among whose splendors of art many of us 
have walked wonderingly — talking as this great 
lady talked about dispensing with the services of 
those who 'ply the hereditary ruler's unnecessary 
trade/ about putting an end to the 'Exploitation of 
the many by the few,' about the call on the privi- 
leged classes to help the workers and sufferers of 
all kinds to take up a strong position and fight the 
forces that are making them ineffective as citizens' 
— to hear a voice like this chanting the battle song 
of democracy from the heights of privilege is enough 
to make us see that He who said, 'I will overturn, 
overturn, overturn,' is getting in his work." Truly 
Babylon is falling, is falling, and Christ, the Con- 
queror is advancing on His victorious way to the 
Empire of the world. 

3. The Third Part of Babylon is that which is 
variously called the Economic, the Commercial and 
Industrial System, or the Social Order of the 
World. This is the Citadel, the last to yield; its 
overthrow in some nations of the world at least may 
prove a catastrophe greater than has ever been 
witnessed before. It is this catastrophe which is de- 
scribed in the 18th Chapter of the Revelation which 
may be called the greatest Tragic Poem or prose- 
poem in any language. In form it is scarcely poet- 
ical though almost as much so as some of Walt 
Whitman's great poems or some of the ancient He- 
brew poetry. But for vividness of description, in- 
tensity of coloring, boldness and sustained power in 
its flights of imagination it has scarcely a rival in all 
literature. When this Catastrophe shall occur we 



The Fall of Babylon 91 

do not know, except that a period of Reconstruction 
a Time of Evening Light precedes it after the close 
of the war. In my opinion it will occur somewhere 
in the next twenty-five or thirty years. That it will 
come quickly when it comes is indicated in the la- 
mentation of the sea-faring men, "In one hour is she 
made desolate." There is no indication in this chap- 
ter by what agency the Fall of this Babylon is 
brought about, but from all the evidence I can dis- 
cover in the conditions of society, in the way the peo- 
ple are thinking and putting forth their efforts, and 
in the slight intimations of the Prophetic Word, it 
seems to me very clear that the instrumentality em- 
ployed will be Socialism. Prof. Rauschenbush in 
his important work on Christianizing the Social Or- 
der has pointed out to us that in this country at least 
the Family, the School, the Church, and the Gov- 
ernment have in a good degree been Christianized 
already, but "Business" scarcely at all. Surely there 
is something fundamentally wrong in the very struc- 
ture of the Social Order when we see a few gather- 
ing in and piling up useless millions of wealth, and 
revelling in luxury and more than barbaric splendor 
while millions of their fellow beings as deserving as 
themselves are down in the abyss or hanging over 
the verge of hopeless poverty. Richard Rombold 
upon the scaffold in England in 1685, said "I never 
could believe that Providence had sent a few men 
into the world ready booted and spurred to ride, 
and millions ready saddled and bridled to be rid- 
den." No it is not Providence, it is not the plan 
and purpose of God, or the Law of His Kingdom 



92 The Time of the End 

wherein no : such inequalities will exist. The of- 
fender is '"Babylon the Great the Mother of harlots 
and abominations of the earth." Babylon whose 
choicest merchandise is the "bodies and souls of 
men." Babylon has filled the measure of her ini- 
quity; her hour is at hand, and she must fall. So- 
cialists believe that they have an infallible remedy 
for these long existing and almost intolerable condi- 
tions, which may be quickly and easily applied when- 
ever they have sufficient strength to do so. If the 
whole Social Order were thus suddenly transformed 
the result would be about that which is pictured to 
us in this great Prophetic Tragedy. Let us listen 
now to the Voice which John heard speaking from 
Heaven. 

"Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! Come forth 
my people out of her that ye be not partakers of her 
sins, for her sins have reached unto heaven and God 
hath remembered her iniquities. How much soever 
she glorified herself and waxed wanton so much give 
her of torment and mourning. For she said in her 
heart I sit a queen and am no widow and shall in no 
wise see mourning. Therefore in one day shall her 
plagues come, death and mourning and famine; and 
she shall be utterly burned with fire for strong is 
the Lord who judged her. And the kings of the 
earth who committed fornication and lived wan- 
tonly with her shall weep and wail over«her, stand- 
ing afar off for the fear of Jier torment, and the 
merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her 
for no man buyeth their merchandise anymore — 
merchandise of gold and silver and precious stone, 



The Fall of Babylon 93 

and pearls and fine linen and scarlet — and wine and 
oil and fine flour, and wheat and cattle and sheep, 
and horses and chariots and bodies and souls of men. 
And every ship master, and such as gain their liv- 
ing by the sea stood afar off and cried as they looked 
upon the smoke of her burning saying — Woe, woe, 
the great city where all that had ships in the sea 
were made rich by reason of her costliness. For in 
one hour she is made desolate — And the voice of 
harpers and minstrels shall be heard no more in thee 
— and the light of a lamp shall shine no more in thee 
— and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride 
shall be heard no more at all in thee; for thy mer- 
chants were the princes of the earth; for with thy 
sorcery were all the nations deceived. And in her 
was found the blood of prophets and of saints and 
of all that have been slain upon the earth." 

After these things I heard a great voice of a great 
multitude in Heaven, saying: 

''Hallelujah; salvation and glory and power be- 
long to our God ; for true and righteous are His 
judgment for He hath judged the great Harlot that 
corrupted the earth with her fornication and avenged 
the blood of His servants at her hand. And a sec- 
ond time they say Hallelujah! and her smoke goeth 
up forever and ever." 

How widespread will be this great Catastrophe 
we cannot foresee. It may be confined to Europe 
and Eastern Asia, possibly to those lands afterwards 
leagued together to form the Seventh Empire. But 
surely the warning once given to the rulers of the 
earth and little heeded by them is very much in or- 



94 The Time of the End 

der at this time here in our own land "Be wise now 
therefore ye kings of finance, be instructed ye great 
Corporations of the earth. Serve the Lord with 
fear (and man with wisdom and justice) and re- 
joice with trembling. Kiss the Son (be reconciled 
to Jesus Christ and the rules of His Kingdom) lest 
He be angry with you and ye perish from the way 
when His wrath is kindled but a little." Unless 
you mend your ways your doom is at hand, and with 
it will come disaster to multitudes who are guiltless, 
and sorrow and trouble to the whole land. I trust 
that our nation and many other nations also will be 
wise enough to foresee and forestall the impending 
Crash of Babylon's Fall by Christianizing the So- 
cial State. 

As to Socialism. It may be that the splendid 
dreams of Bellamy and of Karl Marx will furnish 
us an outline of the Kingdom of Christ in its out- 
ward material form. But one thing I am sure of 
whatever the form it must have a spirit and that 
spirit must be the Spirit of Christ. Socialism can 
never be a permanent success unless Socialists them- 
selves are born again and baptized with the spirit of 
our Lord. A godless Socialism, a body with out a 
spirit, will only bring ruin and disaster to mankind. 
That such will be the temporary result of the Fall 
of Babylon seems to be foreshadowed in the pro- 
phecies we shall next consider. 



CHAPTER X 

THE REIGN OF ANTICHRIST 

THE word "Antichrist" means one who is op- 
posed or antagonistic to Christ. The word 
itself is found only in the first and second 
Epistles of John where it is repeated several times. 
In 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12, which is probably the 
most important of all the Prophecies concerning the 
Antichrist, he is called the "Man of Sin," the "Son 
of Perdition," and the wicked or "Lawless" one. In 
the Book of the Revelation he is known as the 
False Prophet, and is not mentioned until we reach 
the 1 6th Chapter. The Reign of Antichrist begins 
after the Fall of Babylon, probably very soon after 
that event and continues until the Final Coming of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. The subject of this chapter 
will be dealt with under the following topics : The 
Doctrine of Antichrist, The Many Antichrists, The 
Man of Sin or the False Prophet, and the Great 
Tribulation. There are several other topics that 
belong to the same period of time : The Coming of 
the Bridegroom and the Marriage Supper of the 
Lamb, the Seventh Empire, the Glorious Appearing 
of Jesus Christ and the Battle of Armageddon, but 
these will be considered in separate chapters. 

I. The Doctrine of Antichrist. 
"Hereby know ye the Spirit of God. Every spirit 
that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh 

95 



96 The Time of the End 

is of God ; and every spirit that confesseth not Jesus 
is not of God ; and this is the spirit of the Antichrist 
whereof ye have heard that it cometh, and now it is 
in the world already." / John 4:2, 3. 

Some one has said that what one generation be- 
lieves the next generation practices. That is often 
true. A generation ago the materialistic philosophy 
was taught and accepted by multitudes of people. 
The result today is the craze for wealth and ma- 
terial possessions in this country and England, and 
in Germany the craze for conquest and mastery over 
other nations. Often, however, the seed-sowing of 
opinions and the harvest of deeds are not separated 
by the space of a generation. The seed may spring 
up and mature in a very short space of time, or on 
the other hand it may lie dormant for several gen- 
erations and then at last it may germinate and grow 
in the field of human activity. The law is a gen- 
eral one, "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he." 
As a nation, or race, or class of people believe, so 
in course of time they will be. We see from this 
the great importance of right beliefs and of right 
education of our youth. We see also the relation 
of this topic to the general subject of this chapter. 
As the Doctrine of the Kingdom is the seed of the 
Kingdom of Christ, so the Doctrine of Antichrist 
is the seed of his kingdom in a very important sense. 

As early as the days of the Apostle John there 
were many Antichrists and there was a Doctrine 
of Antichrist in an elementary form. Every man 
who was ruled by the Spirit of God, John says, held 
a certain belief; every man who had the spirit of 



The Reign of Antichrist 97 

Antichrist held the opposite, and the result was that 
the second man sooner or later withdrew from the 
company of believers and took his place with the 
opposers of Christianity. This distinctive belief 
was that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh or as 
John puts it in his Gospel, that the Word or the 
eternal Christ was "made flesh and dwelt among 
us." Those who believed this were Christians, 
those who did not were Antichrists. There were 
two forms of this disbelief. Some believed in the 
Man Jesus, but did not believe that he was anything 
more than a man. Others believed in a Divine 
Christ but did not believe that he had ever been 
clothed in flesh and blood, in other words that the 
physical personality of the Christ was unreal, a 
mere delusion of the senses. This was the Gnostic 
form of the Doctrine of Antichrist. 

Ever since the days of the Apostle these Doc- 
trines of Antichrist have been in the world. The 
Gnostic idea of the unreality of matter and of the 
physical body has been made the basis of many sys- 
tems of philosophy, but these have seldom been tak- 
en seriously enough except by a few, to be called dis- 
tinctively Antichristian. Not so, however, with 
the denial of the preexistence and Deity of Jesus 
Christ. The Doctrine of Antichrist is not so 
simple now as it was in John's day. About fifty 
years ago a system of philosophy was put forth in 
Germany which in all probability will form the 
basis of the Antichrist doctrine in its final and more 
elaborate form. Friedrich Nietzsche, the author 
of this philosophy, was the son of a Lutheran min- 



98 The Time of the End 

ister. In youth he was a devout believer and a 
very ardent and enthusiastic student. He became 
a distinguished scholar, especially in philosophy and 
in the Greek literature and history, and while still 
a young man was perhaps the best qualified man 
in all Germany to fill a professorship in either of 
these departments. As a writer he is generally 
conceded to be the greatest master of style Germany 
has ever produced, superior even to Goethe. He 
especially excelled in the power of illustration. Some 
simile or metaphor or historical allusion was always 
ready at his command, and it was always apt, and 
always made his thought clear and luminous. There 
seemed to be a touch of insanity about the man from 
the first. There were times when he seemed to be 
lifted up in an ecstasy of joy that was almost super- 
human, and there were times when he was so filled 
with despair and rage and hate as to be a terror 
to his best friends. In his latter years he was a 
physical and mental wreck, although there were 
some lucid intervals when something of his former 
power would return. 

The gist of the Nietschian Philosophy is expressed 
in the two phrases "The Super-man" and "the Will 
to Power." In early life he had become greatly 
enamored with certain men among the Ancient 
Greeks, a dozen perhaps in all, and it seemed to him 
that these men were of far more value to Greece 
and to the world than hundreds of thousands of the 
common herd. For example : ten thousand men may 
have perished in the Siege of Troy, but no one cares 
anything for them; what matters it since it gave to 



The Reign of Antichrist 99 



us the Illiad ; one Homer is worth far more than 
the thousands of the slain. So in every age the 
Super-men are the only ones worth considering. 
And the Super-man must become such by the Will 
to Power. He must be ruthless. He must trample 
his way to the heights over all considerations of hu- 
manity or morality. Every inferior personality must 
bend and bow to him. The world is eagerly wait- 
ing for his appearing and his triumphant progress. 
No glory that mankind can attain is to be compared 
with the glory reflected in his career. N. P. Willis 
has expressed a similar idea in his Parrhasius. 
The great artist is painting his famous picture of 
"Prometheus Bound" and is torturing an old man a 
captive and slave who serves as his model. 

"Pity thee! so I do. 
I pity the dumb victim at the altar. 
But does the robed priest for his pity falter? 
I'd rack thee, though I knew 
A thousand lives were perishing in thine. 
What were ten thousand to a fame like mine?" 

You say this is nothing new. That may be; but 
Nietzsche has taken the old ideas and exalted them 
into a sort of Philosophy, and made them interesting 
and attractive by his clear and brilliant style. 

Nietzsche was well aware and freely acknowl- 
edged that this was the Philosophy of Antichrist. It 
cost him a hard struggle at first to break with Jesus 
Christ, and then a still harder struggle to break with 
Martin Luther whom he regarded as still the Ger- 



100 The Time of the End 

man Super-man in religion. But at length the die 
was cast and throwing all fear and caution to the 
winds he plunged into the fray and gave forth his 
views to the world. 

From the theological side the modern Doctrine of 
Antichrist has never been frankly and openly stated 
from lack of courage in those who hold it. Nietz- 
sche had two distinguished friends, Richard Wag- 
ner, the great musician, and Ritschl who has been 
called the Father of the modern views of the Bible. 
Often he dreamed of a new era in which he should 
be accredited as the Philosopher, Ritschl as the 
Theologian and Wagner as the arbiter in Music 
and Art. But his friends gave him little encourage- 
ment or help in the propagation of his doctrines. 
Both these men held that while religion was not at 
all necessary to them, it was a necessity to the com- 
mon people and they must not be robbed of it; and 
as for Richard Wagner his plans could not be car- 
ried out at all except by the co-operation and favor 
of a large number of the German people. During 
the lifetime of Nietzsche, his influence was limited 
and his writings were little known outside a rather 
narrow circle. But soon afterwards Treischke a 
Professor of History and a brilliant and popular lec- 
turer began to apply the Philosophy of Nietzsche to 
the whole German People. They were the Super- 
men, the superior race, whose mission it was to 
dominate and rule and impose their kultur on all 
the world, ruthlessly, by war and bloodshed if 
there was no other way. Then followed the long 
campaign of education in which these ideas were in- 



The Reign of Antichrist IOI 

stilled in the mind of the children and youth and 
every German from the highest to the lowest de- 
voted himself to making real by every device and 
every effort in his power that splendid dream of the 
greatness and power of the German people. Now 
the writings of Nietzsche are eagerly devoured ; it is 
said that a copy of his "Zathrusta" is in the pocket 
of nearly every officer of the German army. The 
seed has been sown already, it is bearing its fruit ; no 
doubt it will be the prominent influence in bringing 
about the Reign of the Antichrist. 

The Doctrine of Antichrist as it is held today is a 
co-ordination of the teachings of the two friends of a 
half century ago, Ritschl and Nietzsche. Of course 
its essence is the old denial that Jesus Christ has 
come in the flesh. And it would also include the 
following particulars. 

We have no authentic record of the Life of Jesus. 
The four Gospels are the record of opinions that 
prevailed, and stories that were told about Jesus in 
the Second and Third Centuries. 

Jesus was a good man and a great reformer, but 
he was only a man. After his death he was so 
idolized by his followers, that in course of time they 
worshipped him as the Son of God. 

Jesus is not the Christ, and therefore he will 
never come again, as Christians say, to rule the 
world. 

Jesus belongs to the past, and his teachings for 
the most part are out of date. The Super-man of 
the future will be a very different sort of man and 
his doctrine will be very different from that of 



102 The Time of the End 

Jesus. 

Jesus was the Super-man of a former age. It was 
right that he should be worshipped and obeyed. So 
when the Super-man of the future appears it is right 
that he should be worshipped, and he must be 
obeyed. 

Christianity has its Philosophy of the Super-man 
which is diametrically opposed in every particular to 
the doctrine of Antichrist. The last struggle be- 
tween the forces of light and of darkness, between 
the powers of Heaven and Hell, will be waged over 
these two opposing doctrines. It will become, how- 
ever, exceedingly personal. On the one side will 
be Jesus Christ and His Bride, the great Army of 
those who are chosen and called and faithful; on 
the other the personal Antichrist and the forces of 
his Empire. The struggle will not be very long 
and in the end Jesus Christ will be the Victor, but 
it will plunge the world, for a time, into the black- 
est and most awful Night that has ever fallen upon 
it. But when the conflict is over and the wreckage 
has been cleared away, and the Judgments of God 
are complete there will dawn upon the earth the 
most glorious day of all the ages, the Sabbath Rest 
of the People of God. 

2. The many Antichrists and the Antichrist who 
is to come. 

"Little children it is the last time: and as ye have 
heard that Antichrist shall come, even now there are 
many antichrists." I John 2:18. 

Every one who disbelieves in Christ and antagon- 



The Reign of Antichrist 103 

izes him is an Antichrist, therefore as John says there 
were many Antichrists in his day, and there have 
been many in the world ever since. Some of them 
have been conspicuous as persecutors and have 
slain or put to death thousands of Christian Mar- 
tyrs. Among the many Antichrists some may be 
selected as types of the Antichrist who is to come, 
but not the Antichrist himself. If any one tells me 
that Nero or Napoleon Bonaparte or Kaiser Wil- 
liam is the Antichrist, I say No ! But each of these 
men is typical in important respects, of the Anti- 
christ, and I suppose if we were to combine together 
the characteristic traits and ambitions and activities 
of these three men we might obtain a pretty good 
composite picture of the Antichrist who is to come. 
For history is prophetic as well as the Written 
Word. 

Nearly all the commentators on the Apocalypse 
hold the view that the second Beast of Revelation 
13:11-18 is the Antichrist. But you might as well 
say that Rome was Nero, or that Germany is Em- 
peror William. The Beast and the False Prophet 
very much resemble one another; their character- 
istics and their aims are very similar. They are 
friends and allies; they fight together and perish 
together at Armageddon; but they are not one 
and the same. 

The only character sketch of the Antichrist given 
us in prophecy, is by Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12, 
and this is also the principal source of information 
respecting his policy and his activities. I can do 
no better than to give Paul's description without 



104 The Time of the End 

comment. Paul is warning the disciples at Thes- 
solonica that they are not to infer from anything he 
has said or written that the "Day of the Lord" is 
just at hand. 

"Let no man beguile you in any wise ; for it 
will not be except there come first a falling away, 
and the Man of Sin be revealed, the Son of Per- 
dition who opposeth and exalteth himself against all 
that is called God or worshipped ; so that he sits in 
the Temple of God setting himself forth as God — 
for the mystery of lawlessness doth already work, 
only One restraineth now until he shall be taken 
out of the way. And then shall be revealed that 
'Lawless One' whom the Lord Jesus shall slay 
with the breath of His mouth and bring to naught 
by the manifestation of His coming — even he whose 
coming is according to the working of Satan with all 
power and signs and lying wonders, and with all 
deceit of unrighteousness for them that are perish- 
ing; because they received not the love of the truth 
that they might be saved." I will only say here 
that it is plainly indicated in this prophecy that the 
False Prophet or coming Antichrist is not a mere 
doctrine or a 'Zeitgeist' like the second Beast, but 
a real living Man of flesh and blood. He will be a 
real man like Napoleon and will most resemble him 
in his great genius, and power of leadership. As 
a ruthless persecutor and destroyer of Christians he 
will most resemble Nero, and in his preposterous 
claims to be the divinely ordained Super-man of the 
whole world, the Kaiser is his nearest prototype. 



The Reign of Antichrist 105 

3. The Great Tribulation. 

"Who are these that are arrayed in the white robes 
and whence came they? — these are they that come 
out of the Great Tribulation, and they washed their 
robes and made them white in the blood of the 
Lamb." Rev. 7:13, 14. 

John gives no explanation here of what he means 
by the great Tribulation, but he had no need to do 
so for our Lord had already foretold that there was 
coming a time when his followers would be like the 
wheat that was being threshed by the "Tribulum" 
the ancient threshing-machine — a time of persecu- 
tion and trouble so severe and terrible that "except 
those days had been shortened no flesh would have 
been saved." "For then shall be great tribulation 
such as hath not been since the beginning of the 
world." (Matt. 24:21, 22). The Seventh Chap- 
ter of the Revelation is a Foregleam of two scenes 
in Heaven, in the second of which the Martyrs and 
Sufferers of this time of the Great Tribulation re- 
ceive their honors and rewards. What concerns us 
now is the vast number of these sufferers — "a great 
multitude whom no man can number" coming out 
from the "Great Tribulation." 

There is some difference of opinion regarding this 
period whether it begins with the Opening of the 
Seals or with the Coming of the Antichrist. Un- 
doubtedly the period of the War has been a time of 
very great tribulation and distress. But the gen- 
eral opinion is that the Great Tribulation of Pro- 
phecy is the period of the Reign of Antichrist. In 
the Seventh Chapter of the Revelation and in the 



106 The Time of the End 

Prophecies of our Lord concerning this time it seems 
to be indicated that Christians are the principal suf- 
ferers. Many are killed, many are tortured or im- 
prisoned, many suffer from hunger and cold and 
want of needful clothing. As we read these pro- 
phecies, many questions arise in our minds. "Why is 
all this ? Why does the anger of the Antichrist rage 
so furiously against the followers of Christ? And 
back of this How did the Antichrist attain such 
power? Why did the nations submit to his au- 
thority? How widely extended will His Kingdom 
be? Will it cover the whole earth or only a limited 
portion, and if the latter what portion will it be?" 

Let us deal with the last question first — "Will the 
Kingdom of Antichrist ever extend over the whole 
world?" I do not believe that it will. Of course 
we must bear in mind that this is the darkest hour in 
the age long conflict between Christ and Antichrist 
when for a time Christ seems to be defeated and 
driven from His Kingdom and the Usurper is on the 
Throne. No doubt Antichrist will have his friends 
and followers in every land, but I do not think he 
will gain the ascendency in all the nations. The 
United States for example could not serve as the 
Guardian of the Bride if she was under his baleful 
power, and I think that Canada, Australia and the 
South America Republics will stand faithfully by 
the United States in the fulfilment of that great 
trust. The nations of the Far East, China, Japan, 
India and others, judging from the intimations of 
prophecy will be in open hostility to the Antichrist. 
Then England, France and Italy will not come un- 



The Reign of Antichrist 107 

der his sway : at least they will not be among the na- 
tions forming the Seventh Empire. It seems proba- 
ble then that the Kingdom of Antichrist will cover 
the territory which the Germans call "Mittel Eu- 
ropa" including Germany, Austria, the Balkan 
States and Turkey with the addition of Russia. 

Why and how does the Antichrist acquire so great 
power and Jesus Christ suffer so great a defeat? 

The only reason assigned in Prophecy is the Apos- 
tacy preceding his Reign, ' 'There must come a 'fall- 
ing away' first and then the Man of Sin shall be re- 
vealed." 

This "falling away" may be accounted for in part 
as a reaction from the great Revivals of the preced- 
ing period. In every great religious movement many 
persons are swept along with the tide. They have 
no genuine religious experience but follow with the 
multitude. The seed is sown and springs up quickly 
but has no depth of root and when the sun arises 
with scorching heat, when persecution or temp- 
tations assail them, they quickly wither away. Or 
when the shadows of night are falling, when the 
church relaxes its activity and its emotional zeal, 
their faith is darkened and they slip away from their 
first love. Another cause is the Doctrine of Anti- 
christ. For example; in some lands Business and 
Industry may become Christianized so that it will 
not be necessary to transform the Social System by 
a popular uprising. Suppose for example in these 
United States the capitalists and merchants and em- 
ployers of labor should agree together to adopt and 
act in accordance with two great laws of the King- 



108 The Time of the End 

dom. First "We are God's Stewards, whatever re- 
sources of wealth or power He has entrusted to us 
will be used for the common good." Second 
"Greatness in His Kingdom is only by Service We 
will not grasp but serve." But the time of "Falling 
away" has come; some of these men begin to weak- 
en, and to say in their hearts "I thought Christ was 
coming soon, but the signs of His coming are grow- 
ing less; perhaps he will never come; perhaps I am 
a fool" and they go back to their old ways of grasp- 
ing and greed and selfish luxury. This is exactly 
what will happen in the time of the Great Apostacy. 
Jesus says "But if that servant shall say in his heart 
— My Lord delayeth His Coming: and shall begin 
to smite his fellow servants and to eat and drink and 
be drunken ; the Lord of that servant shall come in a 
day when He looketh not for Him and in an hour 
when he is not aware and shall cut him asunder and 
appoint his portion with the hypocrites." (Matt. 
24:48-51). In every time of religious declension 
the Doctrine of Antichrist in various forms gets in 
its work. In every land and every walk of life many 
will thus fall away and perish. 

Another Reason why the Antichrist will attain to 
such power, is that an extraordinary Opportunity 
will be afforded to such a man by the Fall of Baby- 
lon or the sudden upheaval and transformation of 
the Social State. 

What is the chief peril of Socialism? Some say 
that it lies in its Altruism. That men will not put 
forth their best efforts for the common good, as they 
will for their own selfish interest, and slackers will 



The Reign of Antichrist 109 

be multiplied. I think, this peril has been exagger- 
ated for Socialism has its strong appeal to an en- 
lightened self interest. There is, however, a peril in 
this direction. I doubt very much if a Socialistic 
System will ever work until men are born again and 
baptized into the spirit of Christ which is the spirit 
of unselfish service. But after all no system of Gov- 
ernment will work if Christ is not in the lead. In 
the Kingdom of Christ whatever form it may as- 
sume there will be little trouble from this source. 
There will be a few slackers at first but they will be 
soon discovered and cast out into the "Outer Dark- 
ness." (See Matt. 25:30). 

But the principal peril of Socialism, especially at 
its first introduction will lie in its leadership. Where 
Babylon falls, where the entire economic system of a 
country is suddenly transformed as the result of a 
popular uprising there is likely to be for a time a 
chaotic state of affairs which neither the theorists 
nor the revolutionary leaders are able to handle. 
This is the opportunity for a man of genius to make 
himself master of the situation. Just as the chaos 
in France after the Revolution afforded an unusual 
opportunity to Napoleon. A man of tremendous 
will power and consummate ability and with a 
genius for organization, might easily get all the lines 
in his hands and gain the control and mastery of the 
whole Social System over a wide extent of country. 
If he chanced to be a wicked and unscrupulous man 
of inordinate ambition and lust for power how ter- 
rible might be the result. Having control of all 
material resources and supervision of all employ- 



no The Time of the End 

ments and occupations, he would have in his hands 
a mightier engine of cruel oppression than the most 
autocratic Emperor or tyrant ever possessed. And 
all this so far as I can discover is just what is going 
to come to pass in the not distant future. 

But why should the Antichrist even if he is a 
wicked and unscrupulous tyrant, be so incensed 
against the Christians that he will seek to crush and 
destroy them in all his dominions? The answer to 
this question is given us in the Prophecies. 

First we have the prediction in Revelation 17:16 
to which I have before referred. It is said that the 
Ten "Horns" or nations will hate the Harlot and 
strip her of her possessions and burn her with fire. 
The Harlot church evidently has incurred the 
enmity of the people by taking sides with their op- 
pressors during the disturbances that precede the 
Fall of Babylon. So bitter is the feeling thus en- 
gendered that they take from her all her wealth and 
power, leaving her naked and bare and practically 
putting an end to her existence. This does not 
mean that all professed Christians or even the ma- 
jority of them have arrayed themselves with the 
rich and powerful against the interests of the peo- 
ple. Many of them including all the "Sealed" have 
heard the warning cry "Come forth from Babylon, 
my people that ye be not partaker of her sins and re- 
ceive not of her plagues, for her sins have reached 
even unto heaven and God hath requited her iniqui- 
ties." Still a certain degree of odium will be at- 
tached to all Christians on account of the hostile at- 
titude and activity of the Harlot Church and the 



The Reign of Antichrist ill 

judgments that have fallen upon her. Many on this 
account will fall away and renounce their Christian 
faith, but a great multiude will remain true as the 
followers of Jesus Christ. 

But the principal cause of the terrible persecution 
is suggested in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4. The Anti- 
christ, that great Enemy of God and man, in 
his impiety and arrogance, sets himself up as an ob- 
ject of worship forbidding all worship, public or 
private of any other being or object but himself. He 
claims perhaps to be the Christ returned to earth or 
to take the place of a Christ who will never return. 
The masses of the people are deceived and yield to 
his demands. But the "Elect" are not deceived. 
They know that this monster is not, cannot be their 
Christ and they will not bow down to him nor wor- 
ship him. Then follows a carnival of slaughter and 
cruel oppression such as the world had never seen 
before and could not long endure. Every where 
his agents and henchmen go, poisoning and corrupt- 
ing the minds of men, and in his own dominions 
there are wholesale massacres and murders, and 
many more are robbed of their possessions, impris- 
oned and tortured and made to suffer all manner of 
indignities and cruel wrongs. I shall not attempt 
further to describe to you the horrors of this Dread- 
ful Night of the Great Tribulation or to number 
the victims of the diabolical cruelty of the Man of 
Sin and will close this section as I began it with the 
splendid vision of these poor sufferers of earth after 
they have passed on to the eternal joy and rewards 
of Heaven. 



112 The Time of the End 

"After this I looked and lo! a great multitude 
whom no man could number of all nations and kin- 
dreds and people and tongues stood before the 
throne and before the Lamb clothed in white robes 
and palms in their hands — and one of the Elders an- 
swered me saying Who are these arrayed in white 
robes and whence came they? And I said unto him, 
Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me. These are 
they that have come out of the Great Tribulation 
and have washed their robes and made them white 
in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they be- 
fore the throne of God — they shall hunger no more 
neither thirst any more — for the Lamb in the midst 
of the throne shall be their Shepherd and shall lead 
them unto fountains of waters of life, and God shall 
wipe away all tears from their eyes." 



CHAPTER XI 

THE COMING OF THE BRIDEGROOM AND THE MAR- 
RIAGE SUPPER OF THE LAMB 

"At midnight there was a cry, Behold the Bride- 
groom! come ye forth to meet Him!" — Matthew 
25:6. 

THE story is told of a pioneer preacher in the 
Tennessee mountain region that he commenced 
his discourse one day after this fashion "My 
sermon this morning is divided into three parts ; the 
first part no one can understand but myself ; the sec- 
ond part some of you can understand and some can- 
not; but the third part everybody can understand." 
What we are accustomed to call the Second Com- 
ing of Christ is in three Stages. In the first stage 
He is wholly unseen by mortal eyes; in the second 
He is seen by His Bride alone; in the third He 
comes openly and visibly and "every eye shall see 
Him." Jesus said "Ye know not when the Master 
of the House cometh at evening or at midnight or 
at the cock crowing or in the morning." Here He 
indicates perhaps the times of His Coming in its 
three stages. He comes unseen at the evening hour ; 
He comes to His Bride at midnight; His public 
coming is at the Cock crowing, the earliest glim- 
mering of the morning light. I suppose in a certain 
sense there have been many "Comings" of the Son 
of God. He came many times to Saints of old as 

113 



U4 The Time of the End 

the " Angel of the Covenant" and walked and talked 
with them. He came also unseen at the Destruction 
of Jerusalem. But there are two Comings of our 
Lord that are distinguished from all the rest as His 
First and Second Advent, and that which distin- 
guishes them is the fact that in these two instances 
and these alone He leaves His throne in the skies 
and comes to sojourn upon the earth. Peter in his 
sermon on the Day of Pentecost applies to Him the 
words of David. "Jehovah said unto my Lord, sit 
thou upon my right hand until I make thy foes the 
footstool of thy feet." And the Author of the Epis- 
tle to the Hebrews affirms more definitely "This 
man when He had offered one sacrifice for sins 
forever, sat doiun on the right hand of God, hence- 
forth expecting until His enemies be made His foot- 
stool." Yet we are not to infer that Jesus has been 
sitting serenely upon His throne all these years. The 
Martyr Stephen when "He saw his Master in the 
sky and called on Him to save," cried out: "I see 
Jesus standing on the right hand of God!" How 
could He sit still when this beloved and faithful 
man in mortal agony was crying to Him for help? 
I often think of Jesus as rising from His throne, 
and going out and leaning over the battlements of 
Heaven to direct His angels in their swift flight to 
minister to His people in their distress and need. 
But nineteen Centuries ago He left His Throne and 
laid aside His royal robes and kingly crown to come 
to our earth as the Redeemer of mankind — to be 
born as a little babe and to live among us in His 
humiliation for thirty-three j^ears. And now at the 



The Bridegroom 115 



end of the Age He comes again — not in lowly form 
but with a Crown upon His brow and a Name em- 
broidered on His "Raiment dipped in blood" — 
"King of kings and Lord of lords." 

The word "Coming" so often used in the Eng- 
lish Versions of the New Testament is a translation 
of the Greek irapovsla which means "Presence" as 
well as "Coming." When we say that Jesus has 
come — that He came with the Breaking of the 
Seals, we mean that He is here — that this is the 
time of the Unseen Presence of Christ upon the 
earth. But you say was not Christ present with us 
before? Did He not say "Lo! I am with you al- 
ways" — all the days and all the hours — "unto the 
end of the Age?" Did He not say "where two or 
three are gathered together there am I?" Yes, but 
He was present hitherto by His Spirit — now He is 
present though unseen in His own person. It seems 
to me, now that our Lord has really come again to 
earth, though unseen, many of us will come to know 
Him better and understand His will as never be- 
fore; and that we shall feel the thrill of His touch 
in our lives, and the consciousness of His presence 
with us shall become so intense and vivid that it 
will seem at times as if He must break through the 
veil as He will by and by, and let us see His face 
and hear with our mortal ears the music of His 
voice. To me this Unseen Coming of the Lord is 
the most attractive part of His Second Advent. 
Others dwell with greater delight upon His Com- 
ing as the Bridegroom. Perhaps I might also if I 
were a younger man, but before He thus comes if I 



Ii6 The Time of the End 

mistake not I shall be in a world where I could see 
Him face to face if He should not come to earth at 
all. And so the sweetest and holiest thought that 
fills my mind is this — that Jesus Himself is here. 
And I keep repeating it over and over again "Jesus 
has come, He is here." 

The Subject of this Chapter is the Second Stage 
of the Coming of Christ — His Coming as the Bride- 
groom. 

The term "Bridegroom" as applied to our Lord is 
not employed for the first time in the Parable of 
the Virgins. John the Baptist emphasizing the fact 
that he himself was the Fore-runner and not the 
Christ said, "He that hath the Bride is the Bride- 
groom, but the Friend of the Bridegroom who 
stands by and hears his voice, rejoiceth greatly: this 
my joy therefore is fulfilled." Jesus defending His 
disciples for their neglect to observe the Jewish fasts, 
said "Can the children of the bride-chamber mourn 
as long as the Bride is with them? But the days 
will come when the Bridegroom shall be taken away 
from them and then shall they fast." He also spoke 
a parable of a Royal Wedding in which He himself 
is supposed to be represented as the Bridegroom. 

Nearly all expositors who hold the Pre-millenial 
view of the Second Advent associate with the com- 
ing of Christ as Bridegroom what is called the 
"Rapture of the Church," "Rapture" being used 
in the nearly obsolete sense of "Seizure." The 
idea is that when the Bridegroom comes, the 
Church is suddenly "Snatched away" to some Heav- 
enly region where her marriage is celebrated with 



The Bridegroom 1 17 



her Lord. After an absence of three and a half 
years, they return together to take possession of 
their Kingdom. This doctrine has given rise to 
many imaginary situations and scenes of a highly 
dramatic character. I once heard Harry More- 
house preach on the Second Coming in a large 
church building that was crowded to the doors. 
Taking out his watch in the midst of his sermon he 
said "It is now twenty minutes of four. In five or 
ten minutes the Lord Jesus may come." He then 
went on to describe what would happen if He came. 
"My voice will suddenly cease and you will not see 
me in this pulpit for I have vanished. The man or 
woman seated by your side is also gone as you will 
soon discover. Looking around you will see many 
vacant seats, although no one has gone out of the 
doors. Who are the missing ones? You will recall 
them to mind as the most devoted and faithful 
Christian men and women you know. Presently 
some one raises the despairing cry "Jesus Christ has 
come and we are left behind." Others begin to 
pray, "Lord, Lord, open to us!" But there comes 
back the dreadful voice "Too late! too late! the 
Door is shut! Verily I say unto you I know you 
not. Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day 
nor the hour wherein the son of man cometh." One 
writer pictures the consternation that ensues in var- 
ious homes as the inmates awaken and find that the 
dear mother, the faithful maid or the good brother 
who was "so different" from the gay and worldly 
sisters is missing. After searching in vain all over 
the house and grounds, they go out upon the streets, 



n8 The Time of the End 

only to discover that a great many other people are 
out upon the same quest. By and by the mystery is 
solved — The Lord has come and taken His loved 
ones with Him. These stories are interesting and 
thrilling, but are they true? Is there to be such 
a "Rapture of the Church" as they would indicate? 
The doctrine is based almost wholly upon three 
passages of Scripture, Revelation 12:14, 1 Thessa- 
lonians 4:15,' 16, and Matthew 24:39-41. The 
first of these describes the Flight of the Bride to 
America and has no reference to the supposed 
"Snatching up" of the Bride into Heaven. As to 
the passage in Thessalonians it certainly does de- 
scribe a "Rapture of the Church," but it is not at 
the Coming of the Bridegroom, for the First Resur- 
rection does not occur until several years later (Rev- 
elation 20:5, 6) therefore the Resurrection of the 
"dead in Christ" cannot be at the Coming of the 
Bridegroom. The passage in Thessalonians reads 
as follows: "I would not have you ignorant brethren 
concerning them that fall asleep ; that ye sorrow not 
even as the rest who have no hope ; for if we believe 
that Jesus died and rose again even so them also 
which sleep in Jesus shall God bring with Him. For 
this I say unto you by the word of the Lord that 
we that are alive and remain unto the Coming of 
the Lord shall in no wise precede them that are 
fallen asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend 
from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the 
archangel and the trump of God and the Dead in 
Christ shall rise first. Then we that are alive and 
are left shall together with them be caught up in 



The Bridegroom 1 19 



the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall 
we ever be with the Lord." According to the theory 
in question after this occurs there is an Absence of 
three and a half years, when the Lord returns and 
executes a series of Judgments which must consume 
considerable time, and then there is a Resurrection 
of which John says distinctly "This is the First Res- 
urrection." Why not drop altogether the untenable 
theory of a Resurrection and Rapture of the Church 
at the Coming of the Bridegroom? The language 
of our Lord in His Discourse on future things is 
even less decisive. "Two men shall be in the field — 
two women grinding at the mill — two persons sleep- 
ing in one bed — one shall be taken, the other left — 
Where Lord? Wheresoever the carcass is there will 
also the Vultures be gathered together." This on 
the face of it does not look like a snatching up of 
the Church into Heaven, but rather like a "Seizure" 
by the persecuting powers, acting in a capricious 
manner. This theory of the Rapture of the Church 
is not only without foundation but it has lost its ap- 
peal as I believe to the Saints of God. In these days 
when the choicest young manhood of the nations are 
facing hardships and dangers the most extreme for 
liberty and democracy for country and for human- 
ity, God's elect no longer desire to be removed 
from the scene of conflict at the time of the greatest 
emergency and peril. As for myself I would rather 
be at the battle front, suffering and dying perhaps 
for the name of Christ, than to be sitting at a Mar- 
riage Feast for three years and a half in the safe and 
sheltered regions of the Blest. 



120 The Time of the End 

The Coming of the Bridegroom will be a gleam 
of light in the darkest hour of the darkest night that 
has ever fallen upon the world. "At Midnight a 
cry was heard Behold the Bridegroom Cometh." 
We may compare the Coming of the Bridegroom 
with the Interviews which Jesus held with his dis- 
ciples after His Resurrection. When He was ar- 
rested in Gethsemane he said to his captors "This is 
your Hour and the Power of Darkness" and after 
He was dead and laid in the tomb it seemed to the 
disciples as if that Darkness had so closed in upon 
them that they should never see the light any more. 
But He came forth from the tomb, and according 
to His promise He came again to them, and their 
hearts rejoiced when they saw their Lord. So it 
will be when He comes again as the Bridegroom to 
His chosen Bride. He has written her letters of 
counsel and of love by the hand of Apostles and 
their companions; He has sent Her many tender 
messages by His chosen servants in every age, but at 
last He comes Himself and sits down beside her, 
and talks with her, and she sees Him again face. to 
face. I believe, that when the Bridegroom comes 
He will thus hold Interviews with His people wher- 
ever they are in all the World as He did with His 
disciples during the forty days after His Resurrec- 
tion and before His Ascension to Heaven. No doubt 
He will give them warning of special perils and 
how they may escape from them, and will comfort 
them with the assurance that the time of Tribula- 
tion will not be long — that He will be back again 
with legions of angels, to overcome all their foes 



The Bridegroom 121 



and destroy them that destroy the world. But best 
of all they see Him and their hearts rejoice, and 
their joy no man shall take from them. At this 
stage of His Coming He will be seen only by His 
people: the world will see Him not. 

2. The Marriage Supper of the Lamb. 

"And I heard as it were the voice of a great mul- 
titude, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice 
of mighty thunderings, saying Allelulia! for the 
Lord God Omnipotent reigneth! Let us be glad 
and rejoice and give honor to Him, for the Mar- 
riage of the Lamb is come and His Wife has made 
herself ready. And to her was granted that she 
should be arrayed in fine linen clean and white; for 
the fine linen is the righteous acts of saints. And 
He saith unto me Write: Blessed are they who are 
called to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb." Rev- 
elation 19:6-9. This Proclamation follows imme- 
diately after the Chorus of Joy over the Fall of 
Babylon, so I suppose it is not very long after that 
event. 

Where is the Marriage Supper to be celebrated? 
Many would answer "In Heaven" and with this I 
heartily agree. No Rapture of the Church is need- 
ed other than that which the Antichrist provides. 
The Saints of earth will be passing continually in 
countless throngs to Heaven out of the Great Trib- 
ulation, and I suppose the Feast will be in progress 
there continuously for the benefit of these new 
comers up to the time when Christ is ready to return 
with His Bride to their earthly Kingdom. We are 



122 The Time of the End 

always at liberty to let our imagination run riot in 
picturing the joys and glories of Heaven, for the 
reality is so much beyond our poor conception that 
we cannot easily go wrong. But in this case I for- 
bear, as the theme however attractive is beyond the 
scope of my present inquiry. I rest contented with 
the simple statement that the Marriage Supper of 
the Lamb is to be celebrated in Heaven. 

But not in Heaven alone. In our Lord's Para- 
ble of the Royal Wedding (Matthew 22:1-14) we 
are told that a man came in not having on a Wed- 
ding Garment. Now that would be impossible in 
Heaven for there is no such man there, neither are 
there any people in the streets of the Heavenly City 
or the highways round about that resemble some of 
those to whom the invitations are given. In speak- 
ing of an earthly scene foreshadowed in prophecy 
we should not let our imagination run riot, but 
should restrain it somewhat and keep within the 
limits of that which is revealed even though the pic- 
ture is incomplete. 

One feature of the picture stands out distinctly 
above all others, and that is the Coming of the 
Bridegroom is a Crisis in the life history of a great 
many persons. There are many, very many who 
are Friends of the Bridegroom and Companions of 
the Bride who are not ready as she is ready, to en- 
ter in with Him to the Marriage. I do not mean 
by this that they are not saved and will not go to 
Heaven when they die. But they are not Sealed or 
consecrated to God, they are not clothed like the 
Bride in white linen as Priests unto God; their 



The Bridegroom 123 



lights are dimly burning, but they have no reser- 
voir of holy oil in their secret hearts. The Coming 
of the Bridegroom is their last opportunity. If not 
ready then the Door is shut and they are left in 
the outer darkness. But you say what difference 
does this make if I only reach Heaven at last? A 
vast difference ; for one thing you will have no part 
in the First Resurrection. Not being of the Bride, 
you will not sit with Him in His throne when 
He comes in His glory and all the holy angels with 
Him. I may not understand it very well, but I 
am sure that it is a very critical time when the 
Bridegroom comes and the door is shut. ' 'Blessed 
are they who are called to the Marriage Supper 
of the Lamb." "Watch, therefore, for ye know 
neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of 
Man cometh." 

Another thing that is revealed in connection with 
the Marriage Feast here upon the earth, is that the 
observance of one of the Ordinances of the Church 
has now come to an end. When Jesus instituted 
the Lord's Supper as we call it, He said, "Do this 
in remembrance of me," . . . "as oft as ye eat 
this bread and drink this cup ye do show the Lord's 
death until He come." This Holy Communion of 
the Body and Blood of our Lord Christ has meant 
a great deal to His people through all these cen- 
turies, and many, many precious and sacred sea- 
sons have they enjoyed as they sat together at His 
Table. But after all this feast was in memory of 
our Dying Lord — to the Bride it was the Feast of 
her Espousal to her absent Lord. But at last He 



124 The Time of the End 

comes again and the feast is transformed — it is now 
the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. It is very much 
as if a family, one of whose number was in the 
trenches in France and was reported killed, should 
agree to meet around the table in the old home at 
stated times in memory of the dear one who gave 
his life to his country. One day as they are thus 
seated together he suddenly appears — alive. How 
that feast would be transformed ! 

Another fact revealed respecting this Feast, is 
that the Bride at last is Ready. Perhaps that is 
the reason Jesus did not come before — the Bride was 
not ready for Him. But now the Flarlot has dis- 
appeared, the false friends have dropped away in the 
time of Apostacy, the Bride has been purified in the 
fires of persecution and she has put on her garments 
of beauty, the fine linen, clean and white, which 
is the Righteousness of the saints. What fresh rev- 
elations of His grace and love, what fond endear- 
ments, what mutual vows of fidelity and affection 
pass between the Bridegroom and Bride as they sit 
together at the Marriage Feast, is a topic upon 
which I cannot worthily speak. All is summed up 
in this — the Bridegroom is come, and the affianced 
Bride of the centuries that have passed is now 
henceforth and forever the wedded Wife of the 
King of kings. 

3. One other topic is more or less connected with 
the Coming of the Bridegroom, that is, the Flight 
of Christians from the dominions of the Antichrist. 
Matthew in reporting the discourse of our Lord 
respecting future things evidently was somewhat 



The Bridegroom 125 



confused about the two questions Jesus was an- 
swering, "When will these things be" (the 
destruction of the Temple) and "what shall be the 
sign of thy Coming and of the End of the Age?" 
Matthew, perhaps, believed that these two events 
were simultaneous, and has somewhat mixed up 
the teachings of our Lord upon the two subjects. 
But after all the fact that History is often prophetic 
and that many of the events connected with the 
Destruction of Jerusalem are typical of others con- 
nected with His Second Coming may help to relieve, 
somewhat our perplexities upon this subject. Jesus 
in this discourse gave His disciples a warning and 
a sign. "When ye see the Abomination of Deso- 
lation standing in the Holy Place" . . . then 
flee for your lives! It is said that very few Chris- 
tians perished in the Siege of Jerusalem. They had 
understood the warning given by Christ and had 
escaped from the city before it was too late. 

A similar signal of danger is to be given the 
Christians in the latter days, when the Antichrist 
himself takes his seat in the Temple at Jerusalem. 
It may be that the prophecies of our Lord which 
have always been applied to the Destruction of Jeru- 
salem have a double meaning and an application to 
the time of the Antichrist. However that may be 
it is evident that the crisis comes when Antichrist 
seats himself in the Temple of God and proclaims 
himself as the only object of worship for all man- 
kind. Then all who worship Jesus Christ as their 
Lord and king must flee at once with all haste 
from his dominions. But whither can they flee? 



126 The Time of the End 

Perhaps America the Home of the Bride, will be 
the only permanent place of safety. Or there may 
be temporary places of refuge nearer at hand, where 
they can find protection until American ships can 
reach them and take them across the seas. But for 
many the flight will be long and perilous, and at- 
tended with hardships and sufferings almost beyond 
endurance. "Pray ye," says Jesus, "that your flight 
be not in the winter. For there shall be great 
Tribulation such as was not since the beginning 
of the world, no, nor ever shall be." I suppose when 
Jesus comes as Bridegroom his warnings will be 
repeated and will be given their second and larger 
application to these perilous days that are so soon 
to come. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE SEVENTH EMPIRE 

THE Beast that thou sawest was and is not; 
and is about to come up out of the Abyss and 
to go into perdition. And they that dwell on 
the earth shall wonder. . . . Here is the mind 
that hath wisdom. The Seven Heads are seven 
mountains on which the Woman sitteth: and they 
are Seven Kings; five are fallen and one is, and 
the other is not yet come: and when he cometh he 
must continue a little while. And the Beast that 
was and is not is himself also an eighth and is of the 
seven; and he goeth into perdition. And the ten 
Horns thou sawest are Ten Kings who have re- 
ceived no kingdom as yet : but they receive authority 
as Kings with the Beast for one Hour; these have one 
mind and they give their power and authority unto 
the Beast. These shall war against the Lamb and 
the Lamb shall overcome them, for He is Lord of 
lords and King of kings, and they that are with 
Him are called and chosen and faithful." — Revela- 
tion 17:8-14. 

Truly this is an Enigma! a veritable Labyrinth 
of Enigmas! But the solution is not so difficult 
since the Revelator himself has furnished us the 
clew, and has directed us to it by setting up a sign- 
board, so to speak, as he did in the 13th Chapter, 
with the inscription, "Here is the mind that hath 
wisdom." First we learn that the story here to be 
127 



128 The Time of the End 

unfolded is that of the Resurrection of the old 
Roman Empire, symbolized by the Beast with Sev- 
en Heads and Ten Horns. This Beast was sup- 
posed to be dead and buried, but he comes up again 
'out of the Abyss' to the astonishment of everybody. 
But it is only for a little season after which he goes 
"into perdition," never again to be revived. In 
order that we may not misunderstand the meaning 
of this prophecy, or lose our way in the labyrinth, 
a clew is given, as I ' have said, to enlighten and 
guide us. The Seven Hills on which Rome was 
built (verse 9) are emblematic of the Seven Heads 
of the Beast, and these again represent Seven Em- 
pires, of which five have fallen, one is still in exist- 
ence and the Seventh is about to appear. This Sev- 
enth Empire is identical with the Beast that comes 
out of the Abyss, the revived and Resurrected Ro- 
man Empire. It is to be composed of Ten Nations 
represented by the Ten Horns of the Beast, now 
confederated together. We are further informed 
in verse 12 that these nations have received no King- 
dom as yet, that is they never have possessed or exer- 
cised Imperial Power, but now as constituent parts 
of a great empire they are to have a share in this 
coveted privilege for one Hour, that is, as I have 
before explained for Four Years and two months. 
As this new Roman Empire, this Confederacy of 
Ten States is to come to an end in 1965 in the Bat- 
tle of Armageddon its organization will, therefore, 
be in 1961. The Ten Nations enter into this con- 
federacy of their own free will, something which 
never could have occurred before: for like the Ten 



The Seventh Empire 129 

Iron Toes of the great Image separated by miry 
clay, as described in Daniel 2:42, 43, they never 
would cleave to one another before. But now they 
are drawn together by a common purpose — Antag- 
onism to the advancing Kingdom of Jesus Christ. 
The "Stone cut out of the Mountain without hands" 
(Dan. 2:44, 45) is enlarging and growing and roll- 
ing on in their direction, and threatens to crush 
them and grind them to powder. After the Com- 
ing of the Lord Jesus this antagonism becomes more 
personal and is directed not so much against the 
Kingdom as against the King. "These shall war 
against the Lamb and the Lamb shall overcome 
them ; for He is King of kings and Lord of lords." 

The Head of the New Empire undoubtedly is 
the Antichrist himself, as under the name of the 
False Prophet we find him and the Beast as com- 
rades fighting together and overwhelmed together 
in a common ruin. And this only makes the re- 
semblance stronger. For in the days of old Rome the 
Emperor often was the Antichrist of his time, not 
only in slaughtering the Christians, but even in 
setting himself up as the Object of worship. 

I may not be able to enumerate with absolute 
certainty the Nations that are represented by the 
Seven Heads and Ten Horns of the Roman Beast, 
but I can at least offer some suggestions which may 
be helpful in the solution of this problem. Of the 
Five Empires that have fallen, the First evidently 
was the old Roman Empire itself before it was 
divided, and the Second and Third were, the East- 
ern and Western Empires after the Division. The 



130 The Time of the End 

Fifth was the Empire of Napoleon as I think, with- 
out a doubt. The Fourth was either the Turkish 
Empire or that of Charlemagne. There are reasons 
in favor and reasons against either solution. I have 
given considerable study to the question and am in- 
clined to think we should name the Turkish Em- 
pire as the Fourth Head of the Beast. The Sixth 
Empire, the one that is still in existence in 1961, 
unquestionably is Great Britain, and the Seventh, 
as we have seen, is the old Roman Empire restored 
to life. 

To enumerate the Ten Horns or the Nations that 
are to constitute the Seventh Empire would be a 
more difficult task. The only statement we have 
to guide us is that the Ten Horns represent Ten 
Nations that "Have received no kingdom as yet," 
that is have never attained to the imperial power. 
This would exclude England, France and Italy. 
The question in regard to Turkey presents some 
difficulty, but in all probability that nation if it is 
still a nation, and perhaps all the people of Western 
Asia unite in the formation of the new Empire. The 
Seventh Empire does not cover, however, all the ter- 
ritory of the old Roman Empire. Probably the 
Western German frontier is its Western Boundary. 
It is implied in the prophecy that the object of this 
Confederacy is to oppose and fesist the growing 
and advancing kingdom of Jesus Christ, which has 
already been established in the Western Hemisphere, 
and is making great progress along the Western 
fringe of Europe and among the nations of the Far 
East. When Jesus Comes the hostility of the Ten 



The Seventh Empire 13 1 

Nations is largely directed against Him personally, 
and in the end it becomes a life and death struggle 
between Christ and Antichrist, and between the 
Bride and the Beast. It is further implied that the 
nations forming the new Empire have been so de- 
ceived and misled by these foul and lying Spirits 
that represent the activities of the Dragon, the Beast 
and the Antichrist, that they enter into the Con- 
federacy heartily of their own free will and choice. 
"These shall make war with the Lamb and the 
Lamb shall overcome them . . . for God 
hath put in their hearts to fulfill His will and to 
agree and to give their kingdom to the Beast until 
the words of God shall be fulfilled. " Rev. 17:14, 17. 



CHAPTER XIII 
"the glorious appearing" 

"Then shall come the Judgment-Sign 

In the East the King shall shine, 
Flashing from Heaven's Golden Gate 

Thousands, thousands round in state — 
Spirits with the crown and plume; 

Tremble then, thou solemn tomb! 
Heaven shall open on our sight, 

Earth be turned to living light, 
Kingdom of the ransomed just — 

Earth to earth and dust to dust." 

THAT Jesus is coming again is the plain teach- 
ing of the New Testament. There is scarcely 
any book in which this teaching is not con- 
tained, or at least suggested, and some of them are 
largely occupied with setting forth this doctrine. In 
the early Church before it became corrupted by its 
alliance with Rome, the belief in the Second Com- 
ing of our Lord was almost universally prevalent 
and the Doctrine of His Coming was cherished as 
one of the most precious of the cluster of doctrines 
that centered around His Person — His Incarnation 
in human flesh, His death upon the cross, His Res- 
urrection from the dead and His Coming again 
in glory. It differed from the rest in that it was 
the doctrine of Hope while the rest were doctrines 
of Faith. The thought of the early Christians is 
132 



The Glorious Appearing 133 

well expressed by Paul in that passage which has 
suggested the title to this chapter where he says, 
"Looking for that Blessed Hope — the Glorious Ap- 
pearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus 
Christ." (Titus 2:13). It is Jesus Himself 
whose Coming the New Testament writers predict, 
and the Church which is His Bride expects, not 
any great Personage who may represent the Christ 
and come in Jesus' place. "This Same Jesus who 
is taken up from you in Heaven, shall so come in 
like manner as ye have seen Him go into Heaven." 
It is plainly stated again and again that this Coming 
shall be public, and open, and visible to everybody. 
I need only give two quotations, "Behold He Com- 
eth with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and 
they also who pierced Him; and all the kindreds 
of the earth shall wail because of Him." Revela- 
tion 1 17. 

"For as the lightning cometh out of the East, and 
shineth even unto the West; so also shall the Com- 
ing of the Son of Man be." Matthew 24:27. 

Why is it necessary for Jesus Christ thus to come ! 
It is said by many that Miracles or 'supposed' mira- 
cles never were of much real value, and that their 
value is constantly diminishing with the growth of 
scientific intelligence; that Christ himself said, "If 
they hear not Moses and the prophets neither will 
they be persuaded though one rose from the dead," 
and that if He were to come in visible and super- 
human form and thus go about among men until 
everybody should see Him, very few skeptical per- 
sons would be convinced. They would think it was 



134 The Time of the End 

some hallucination of their senses. Many go furth- 
er than this and say that there is no scientific proof 
of Christianity — that the only evidence that is 
worth anything is the peace and comfort and satis- 
faction it brings to the individual believer. Some 
go still further and say that this is no evidence; 
for Jews and Mohammedans and Heathen and even 
the worshippers of Fetiches and charms may have 
the same experiences that Christians have in their 
religion. Now it is just because these ideas are so 
prevalent, and there is so much truth in the state- 
ments made as to the "scientific scepticism of the 
day," that the thin veil which separates what we call 
the Supernatural from our sight must once more 
be broken through, and that Jesus Christ must come 
again in such a manner that He can be seen by 
every eye. Jesus Christ is already among us; we 
see Him not neither know Him, except by the Re- 
sults which He brings about. But comparatively 
few will be convinced by His unseen presence, and 
led to believe on Him and receive Him as their 
King. He is coming again as the Bridegroom when 
He will be seen by His chosen disciples. But the 
masses of mankind will not receive their testimony 
as they did not receive it in the days of old after 
His Resurrection. So He must come at last in His 
glory and be seen by every eye. Some will then 
believe who could not otherwise be convinced ; oth- 
ers will have every reasonable excuse taken from 
them when they stand before His Judgment Seat. 
Besides this He will be better able, by coming in 
visible form to confound and overwhelm His foes. 



The Glorious Appearing 135 

Therefore according to His promise we do confi- 
dently look for that "Blessed Hope the Glorious 
Appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus 
Christ." 

The Visibility of our Lord's glorious appearing 
being once admitted, I can see no reason why we 
should not follow closely the description as to the 
manner of it that is given by Christ himself. "The 
Son of man shall come in His glory and all the holy 
angels with Him." "As the lightning that cometh 
out of the East and shineth even unto the West so 
shall the Coming of the Son of Man be." "Here 
after ye shall see Heaven open and the angels of 
God ascending and descending upon the Son of 
Man." 

"Coming in the clouds of Heaven." A radiant 
and majestic personage seated on a great White 
Throne surrounded by myriads of shining angels 
flying hither and thither at His bidding appears 
some early morning in the Far East moving West- 
ward, following the Sun — over the plains and 
mountains of China and India, across the vast do- 
minions of the Antichrist, and so on and on to the 
Western shores of America. "Heaven is opened" 
at last to human sight, never to be wholly closed 
again throughout the eternal ages, for Jesus Christ 
has come in His Glory, and all the holy angels with 
Him. 



CHAPTER XIV 

ARMAGEDDON 

WITH regard to this great and final battle — 
the Waterloo of the Antichrist and the Beast 
— the crack of doom for all the enemies of 
Christ and His Kingdom, the last and greatest of 
all the battles that will ever be fought upon the 
blood-soaked plains of earth, we have a greater 
amount of information than is commonly supposed. 
Whether there are any prophecies in the Old Testa- 
ment with reference to this battle I am unable to 
say; I have not discovered any, but have not given 
the subject sufficient attention to speak with positive 
assurance. But in the Book of the Revelation the 
Sixth Vial (16:12-16) the Sixth and Seventh Proc- 
lamations (14:14-20) and the Third, Fourth and 
Fifth of the Final Visions (19:11-21) all have refer- 
ence to this Battle or to various events and activities 
leading up to it. To these Prophecies of the Book 
of the Revelation we may add the statement of Paul 
in 2 Thessalonians 2:8 "Then shall be revealed the 
Lawless one whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with 
the breath of His mouth and destroy with the 
brightness of His Coming." In all these Prophecies, 
the Coming of the Lord is very closely related to 
Armageddon, not merely in explanation of its disas- 
trous results to the enemies of Christ but also in 
point of time. The inference therefore is that the 
"Glorious Appearing" is not long before this battle; 

136 



Armageddon 137 



how long we are not informed, but as we shall see it 
certainly follows the organization of the Seventh 
Empire. The prophecies to which I refer have ref- 
erence to the preliminary activities on both sides, the 
Coming of the Lord which is everywhere kept prom- 
inent, and the Battle itself and its results. I will 
take up first the Vision of the Sixth Vial in the 16th 
Chapter. 

"And the Sixth poured out his vial upon the 
great River, the River Euphrates; and the water 
thereof was dried up, that the way might be made 
ready for the Kings that come from the sunrising" 
(verse 12). The intimation here is, that of the hu- 
man forces opposed to the armies of Antichrist in 
the great battle, those of the nations from the Far 
East will be most prominent. Japan, China, India, 
threatened by the newly organized Empire, will not 
wait until their territories are overrun, but will send 
out their millions across the Euphrates into their 
enemies' territory ready for the final conflict. 

"And I saw coming out of the mouth of the Dra- 
gon and out of the mouth of the Beast and out of 
the mouth of the False Prophet three unclean spirits 
as it were frogs; for they are the spirits of demons, 
working signs ; which go forth unto the Kings of the 
whole world to gather them together unto the War 
of the great day of God the Almighty" (verses 13: 
14). While these preparatoiy movements are in 
progress, Christ has not yet come, but the sharp 
"Look out!" signal is now given. "Behold I come 
as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth 
his garments, lest he walk naked." After this sud- 



138 The Time of the End 

den break in the narrative the Prophet continues 
"And they" (that is the three foul spirits) "gathered 
them together into the place which is called in He- 
brew Har-Magedon" (vs. 15, 16). 

In the meantime Christ after His Coming is not 
idle. We turn now to the Third of the Final Vi- 
sions in the 19th Chapter. 

"And I saw the Heaven opened; and behold a 
White Horse and He that sat thereon called Faith- 
ful and True ; and in righteousness He doth judge 
and make war. And His eyes are a flame of fire, 
and upon His head are many diadems; and He hath 
a name written which no man knoweth but he him- 
self. And He is arrayed in a garment sprinkled 
with blood: and His name is called the Word of 
God. And the Armies of Heaven followed Him upon 
white Horses clothed in fine linen, white and pure. 
And out of His mouth proceedeth a sharp sword 
that with it He should smite the nations ; and He 
treadeth the winepress of the wrath of God the 
Almighty. And He hath on His garment and on 
His thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord 
of lords" (verses 11-16). 

Then follows the announcement of the terrible 
slaughter of the approaching battle. "And I saw an 
angel standing in the sun ; and he cried with a loud 
voice saying to all the birds that fly in mid heaven 
Come and be gathered unto the great supper of 
God ; that ye may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh 
of captains and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh 
of horses and them that sit thereon, and the flesh of 
all men both free and bond, small and great" (verses 



Armageddon 139 



17, 18). 

We turn now to the Sixth and Seventh Proclama- 
tions of Chapter 14 . 

"And I saw and behold a white cloud ; and on the 
cloud I saw one sitting like unto a son of man, hav- 
ing on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a 
sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the 
Temple, crying with a great voice to him that sat 
on the cloud, "Send forth thy sickle and reap; for the 
hour to reap is come ; for the harvest of earth is ripe. 
And he that sat on the cloud cast his sickle upon the 
earth ; and the earth was reaped." 

"And another angel came out from the Temple 
having a sharp sickle And an angel came — and 
called to him saying send forth thy sharp sickle and 
gather the clusters of the vine of earth, for her 
grapes are fully ripe. And the angel cast his sickle 
into the earth and gathered the vintage of the earth 
and cast it into the wine press — the great wine 
press of the Wrath of God" (Rev. 14:14-19). 

With this compare the opening of the Fourth Vi- 
sion of Chapter 19 "And I saw the Beast and the 
Kings of the earth and their armies gathered togeth- 
er to make war upon Him that sat upon the Horse 
and against his army" (v. 19). 

The great Battle is now on, and we may well 
pause for a moment to take a survey of the contend- 
ing parties and of the scenes of the battle itself. On 
the one side are the mighty armies of the Beast led 
in person by the Antichrist himself. On the other 
are an equal or even greater force representing all 
the other nations outside of the Seventh Empire, in 



140 The Time of the End 

which the armies of the Nations of Eastern Asia are 
prominent. Christ did not summon these armies that 
are arrayed against the Beast. In former days I 
suppose He had often called upon His followers to 
fight the enemies of His Kingdom, but in this case 
He did not need them for He was present in person 
with all the armies of Heaven. These human armies 
are gathered by the same emissaries that gathered 
the armies of the opposing side; the motives in the 
one case being fear and hatred of the Christ, and in 
the other fear and hatred of the cruel Antichrist and 
the terrible Beast, who after so many centuries has 
returned to life and is again ravaging the world. But 
as the Armies were there Christ makes use of them. 
The result is that thousands and tens of thousands 
of His followers and friends are needlessly sacri- 
ficed, and as on former battlefields only in multi- 
plied measure there are shrieks and groans of the 
wounded and dying and a deluge of carnage and 
blood. If Christ and the Armies of Heaven had 
been trusted to fight this battle alone, the slaughter 
of His foes by the sickles of the Angel Reapers and 
the "fateful lightning" of His "terrible swift 
sword" would have been as great, but their deaths 
would have been painless and without the shedding 
of blood. 

There is a traditional view of the Battle of Ar- 
mageddon that may present a picture of the reality. 
The forces on either side are gathered and are pre- 
paring for the battle, when suddenly over against 
the armies of the Antichrist and bearing down upon 
them, there is seen in the sky the apparition of a 



Armageddon 141 



great White Champion with a flaming sword in 
hand, and following Him a vast throng of Angels 
armed with sickles. Stricken with terror the hosts 
of the enemy turn and flee ; the two armies the An- 
gelic and the human pursue and overtake them, and 
cut them down without mercy. The defeat is over- 
whelming and the slaughter is without precedent in 
all the wars of earth. Here are the prophecies of the 
results of this battle. 

"And the winepress was trodden without the 
City: and there came out blood from the winepress 
even unto the bridles of the horses, as far as a thou- 
sand and six hundred furlongs" (Revelation 14: 
20). 

And the Beast was taken and with him the False 
Prophet that wrought the signs in his sight where- 
with he deceived them that had received the mark 
of the Beast and that worshipped his Image: they 
two were cast alive into the Lake of Fire that burn- 
etii with brimstone. And the rest were killed with 
the sword of Him that sat upon the Horse — the 
sword that came out of His mouth ; and all the birds 
were filled with their flesh" (Rev. 19:20, 21). 

Note on the Date of Armageddon. 

It will be seen from the foregoing discussion that 
the Date of the Battle of Armageddon, determines 
approximately that of the Second Coming of our 
Lord for the two events are very closely connected 
in point of time. I am aware that in fixing this 
Date in the year 1965 I shall subject myself to the 
severest criticism from a great many people. The 



142 The Time of the End 

lamentable failures of those who have previously at- 
tempted the same thing and the words of our Lord 
himself who has said "Of that day and hour know- 
eth no man no not the angels of God, neither the 
Son, but the Father," will be alleged as arguments 
to show the presumption and folly of attempting 
any such thing. In reply I would say first, that the 
Lord Jesus now knows all that the Father knows as 
to the Time of His Coming and He communicated 
this knowledge to the Apostle John (Revelation 
Chapter 5th). Because John has imparted it to us 
in an obscure and enigmatical way is no reason that 
we should not attempt to understand it. In fact 
John himself has challenged us to solve the Enigma 
if we are men of understanding (Rev. 13:18.) As 
to the failures of others I do not know that any one 
of them with the exception of Count Tolstoy ever 
discovered or used the Key which is given us in the 
prophecy itself. One of the most pitiable of these 
failures was "Pastor Russell," who counted all dates 
from the time he entered the ministry, as if the 
whole Universe revolved around his insignificant 
personality. Tolstoy as I have before pointed out 
seems to have found the right Key but was misled 
in its use perhaps by an error in the text of his Greek 
Testament. The second Key he evidently did not 
find at all. My own method of study has been the 
following: after the discovery of the two Key 
verses of which I have spoken I proceeded to apply 
them as best I could, which cost me considerable re- 
search and much earnest prayer for Divine guidance 
and light. I then began to study these prophecies 



Armageddon 143 



from the standpoint of their fulfilment in this pres- 
ent war, and the indications afforded in events now 
transpiring and in past history of fulfilments yet to 
come. Following this method the whole scheme of 
Prophecy seems to have at last arranged itself before 
my mind like the parts of a dissected map when they 
have been fitted together. As I said at the begin- 
ning much of my work no doubt is tentative. But I 
am very confident of the correctness of the methods 
I have followed, and among the conclusions I have 
reached none is held with more positive assurance 
than the Date of Armageddon. 



CHAPTER XV 

AN HOUR OF JUDGMENTS 

THE first and perhaps the most important Goal 
of Prophecy has already been attained in the 
Coming of the Lord and the Victory at Arma- 
geddon. Of the Five Destroyers of the earth, Four 
have disappeared finally and forever, the Beast, the 
False Prophet, Babylon and the Harlot. Only the 
Dragon remains for a little season, and he so weak 
and helpless from the loss of his four co-adjutors 
that he can accomplish but little. The Night is al- 
ready far spent and the first faint light of the dawn- 
ing day is beginning to appear. But how can it be 
that the Millennium is so near, when such awful 
things have been taking place so recently in the 
world. Many intelligent persons to whom I have 
expressed the view that the Millennium would be 
here by 1970 have said that it was impossible, that 
the world could not be made ready so soon for the 
Kingdom of God, and some have thought that it 
would be thousands of years yet before the Millem 
nium could possibly come. To these difficulties 
there are two replies. The first is that the Millen- 
nium is not a perfect state; that the highest perfec- 
tion of humanity will not be attained until the thou- 
sand years are past, in the Eternal Ages that follow. 
The second reply is that the difficulties and obstacles 
which many believe to be insuperable will be largely 
met and overcome by the Judgments which are 

144 



Judgments 145 



to follow the Coming of the Lord. Two of the De- 
stroyers of Earth Babylon and the Harlot Church 
had been judged and disposed of before He came. 
The Judgment of two others Antichrist and the 
Beast swiftly followed His Coming and have al- 
ready been referred to. The Judgments that are to 
follow are four in number. 1. The Judgment by 
the Angel Reapers. 2. The Judgment of the ser- 
vants at the Judgment Seat of Christ. 3. The Great 
Judgment described in Matthew 25th and finally 
the Judgment upon Satan. In order to under- 
stand these Judgments more clearly it will be neces- 
sary first to define some of the terms employed es- 
pecially those denoting what may be called the 
Places of Punishment. 

1. The Abyss or the "Pit of the Abyss." 
I have already indicated the use of this term as 
applied to the Russian People under the rule of the 
Czar. The term is also applied to the Roman Em- 
pire as symbolized by the Beast. In 1299 this Beast 
went into the Abyss. In 1961 he comes up out of 
the Abyss. Then at last the Dragon or Devil is cast 
into the Pit of the Abyss from which he also emerges 
when the thousand years are finished. In the Old 
Testament it is of course understood, these terms are 
used of Hades the place of the Dead, and sometimes 
of the lowest depths of Hades if we may so speak. 
In the Book of the Revelation they seem to denote 
that the person or thing is reduced to such a condi- 
tion that he is practically dead so far as his influence 
or activity on earth is concerned. But it is not 



146 The Time of the End 

necessarily a permanent condition; it is a condition 
from which one may be restored and brought back 
upon the earth again. 

2. "The Lake of Fire" or the "Furnace of Fire" 
The latter expression is used twice by Christ in 
the 13th Chapter of Matthew. The former only 
is used in the Book of the Revelation. I take them 
to be symonymous, and they are used in the same 
way either with reference to Things that are to be 
destroyed or Personifications like the Beast, or with 
reference to persons. Thus Christ says "The Son 
of man shall send forth His angels and they shall 
gather out of His Kingdom all things that offend 
and them which do iniquity and shall cast them into 
a Furnace of fire" (v. 41, 42). "The angels shall 
come forth and sever the wicked from among the 
just and shall cast them into a furnace of fire." So 
in the Book of the Revelation, the Beast and False 
Prophet are cast alive into the Lake of Fire. After- 
wards the Dragon is cast into the Lake of Fire and 
still later at the General Judgment Death and Hell 
are cast into the Lake of Fire. And all whose names 
are not found in the Book of Life are cast into the 
Lake of Fire. In all these cases the main concep- 
tion is that of total destruction or extermination so 
far as the Kingdom of God in all its boundaries in 
Heaven and on earth is concerned. These persons 
or things are not cast into any Abyss from which 
they may come forth again but into the Furnace or 
Lake of Fire. We must avoid, however, pressing 
this figure of speech so far as to find in it the doc- 



Judgments 147 



trine of the Annihilation of the Wicked. Along 
with all evil things and various Personifications of 
evil, they are annihilated from this earth and from 
the Kingdom of God everywhere, but they are not 
annihilated from existence. They go away into 
everlasting punishment. They are "tormented day 
and night forever and ever. Their worm dieth not 
and their fire is not quenched. And the smoke of 
their torment ascendeth forever." 

3. "The Outer Darkness/' 

This is a term employed several times by Christ. 
The meaning is not explained, but it is evidently 
suggested by the contrast of the darkness and cold 
of the Night with the light and warmth and shelter 
of a comfortable Home, or of a Palace Hall where 
a feast is in progress. It seems to indicate a place 
of confinement or punishment or discipline which is 
not necessarily permanent, and in which the penal- 
ties are far less severe than those of the Abyss or 
the Lake of Fire. Before the Final Coming of Christ 
the territory ruled over by the Beast or the Anti- 
christ may be the Outer Darkness for those who fail 
to escape in the time of mortal peril. After His 
Coming there may still remain some backward na- 
tions, that will need enlightenment and training to 
fit them to become in the fullest sense constituent 
parts of His Kingdom. These for a time are in the 
Outer Darkness. Then again there will be many 
very many individuals who ought not and will not 
be destroyed or swept off the earth entirely, yet who 
must for their own good and the welfare of the 



1 48 The Time of the End 

Kingdom he segregated from the rest for a longer 
or shorter period. These may be placed in deten- 
tion camps or in districts set apart for the purpose, 
some perhaps to remain until they die, others to be 
restored as soon as it is safe and wise to do so. 

The Last Hour — the Hour of the Dawn — that 
precedes the Millennial Day I have designated as 
the Hour of Judgment. In this Period as I have 
said Five Judgments are predicted. The first is that 
which so swiftly follows the Glorious Appearing of 
the Lord — the Judgment upon Antichrist and the 
Beast. They are cast alive into the Lake of Fire, 
that is they are utterly annihilated from the earth 
never to reappear. 

2. The Second is the Judgment by the Angels. 

Two of the Parables of Christ, the Parable of the 
Tares and of the Net cast into the Sea refer to this 
Judgment. In both these parables our Lord uses 
the phrase "So shall it be at the End of the Age." 
Like the Reapers who separate the tares from the 
wheat and gather them in bundles to burn them, or 
like the Fishermen who save the good fish and cast 
the bad away, the Angels shall come forth at the 
end of the age to execute the Judgments of God. 
First they will gather out of the Kingdom all things 
that offend or that cause people to offend and cast 
them into a Furnace of fire. What a burning that 
will be! Piles and piles of munitions, weapons and 
implements of war; crowns and coronets and trap- 
pings of royalty. Barrels and bottles, stocks and 



Judgments 149 



hoards of intoxicating liquors, narcotics and poison- 
ous or useless drugs, instruments of Gambling of 
various sorts, heaps of women's apparel designed 
to so display their charms as to excite the baser pas- 
sions of men, merchandise of Babylon, habits and 
customs of society, public documents, and files of out- 
worn legislation — these are some of the things that 
are not wanted and will not be tolerated in the 
Kingdom of God and must go into the Furnace of 
fire. "Oh ! my masters, what a jolly Bonfire that 
will be!" 

But the Judgment by the Angels will not be con- 
fined to things alone. There will be found a large 
number of Persons whose wickedness is so apparent, 
that the Eye of Omniscience is not needed to discov- 
er it. Not all these by any means were included in 
those slain in the Battle of Armageddon. Like the 
Fishermen who sit down after hauling in their nets, 
and separate the bad fish from the good and throw 
them away, so the Angels are commissioned at this 
time to "sever the wicked from among the just and 
cast them into the Furnace of Fire; there shall be 
wailing and gnashing of teeth." 

- 3. The Judgment Seat of Christ. 
The Object of this Judgment is chiefly to determ- 
ine the honors and rewards that are to be bestowed 
upon the faithful servants of Christ and the posi- 
tions they are to occupy and the work to which they 
will be assigned in the coming kingdom. But in this 
Judgment a number of hypocrites and unworthy 
persons will be discovered and these will be cast out 



150 The Time of the End 

either into the Outer Darkness or the Lake of Fire. 
Christ in several of his parables deals with various 
classes of persons who will thus be set aside. Be- 
sides the downright hypocrites there are the Fool- 
ish Virgins who had no oil in their vessels with their 
lamps, the man who had not on the Wedding gar- 
ment, the lazy unprofitable servant who buried his 
talent in a napkin, the hard-hearted servant who 
would not forgive as he had been forgiven, and that 
wicked servant who said in his heart "My Lord 
delayeth His coming" and began to beat his fel- 
low servants, and to spend his time in drunken rev- 
elry; he is "cut asunder" and assigned his portion 
with the hypocrites. It is of this Judgment that 
Paul says "We must all appear before the Judgment 
Seat of Christ that every one may receive the things 
done in the body according to that he hath done 
whether good or bad." (2 Cor. 5:10). 

4. The Judgment of all the Living. 

"When the Son of Man shall come in His glory 
and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit 
upon the throne of His glory; and before Him 
shall be gathered all nations; and He shall separate 
them one from another as the shepherd divideth his 
sheep from the goats. And He shall. set the sheep 
on his right hand but the goats on His left." Matt. 

25:31-33. 

There is scarcely any Scripture that is more gen- 
erally misunderstood than Christ's description of 
the Judgment in the 25th Chapter of Matthew. Al- 
most universally it has been confounded with the 



Judgments 151 



Final Judgment of the Last Great Day described in 
Revelation 20:11-15. But that is the Judgment of 
the Dead, while this is the Judgment of the Living, a 
thousand years before the Final Judgment. The 
purpose of the two Judgments is very different. 
That of the Final Judgment is to determine the 
final destiny of each individual. The other is to de- 
termine who are to be swept off from the face of 
the earth and who are to be retained as Citizens of 
the Kingdom and fathers and mothers of the coming 
race of man. The standard or principle of Judg- 
ment is therefore different. In the Final Judgment 
the Books are opened; partly to find the record of 
the deeds of each individual, but chiefly to ascertain 
whose names are recorded in the Book of Life — 
who have been born of God, and have continued to 
attest by their works that they have Eternal life, 
that they are living Citizens of Heaven. But in the 
Judgment of the Living the question is simply this 
— who of earth's millions can be allowed to remain 
when the incorrigibly evil are destroyed? Who are 
worthy or fit not to be kings and priests unto God 
as yet, but to be Citizens of the earthly Kingdom 
and true and loyal subjects of the King? The de- 
cision of the Judge is this ; they are worthy and they 
only who when tried, have shown by their deeds 
that they love their fellowmen — that they have that 
spirit of brotherhood and of service which is to be 
the Law of His Kingdom. ''Come ye blessed of my 
Father inherit the kingdom prepared for you from 
the foundation of the world. For I was hungry 



152 The Time of the End 

and ye gave me food ; I was thirsty and ye gave me 
drink; naked and ye clothed me; I was sick and in 
prison and ye visited me. Inasmuch as ye did it 
unto one of the least of these my brethren ye did it 
unto me." 

The Reasonableness of this decision will be fur- 
ther apparent from two considerations. First, other 
classes of offenders have already been judged and 
removed from the earth or taken out of the way. 
They are not in this great assembly of the sheep and 
goats that are gathered around the Judgment 
throne. And the second is that conditions in a large 
part of the world have been such as to render the 
kindly services here referred to of especial value, 
both to the recipient and as indications of the charac- 
ter of him who showed the kindness. I may be able 
to make this plain by means of a sort of Parable. 

Suppose that in a certain country the Labor Unions 
should gain complete control not only of all in- 
dustry and business, but of every department of 
Government, executive, legislative, and judicial. 
Laws are enacted and are strictly enforced that no 
man may employ or be employed in any kind of la- 
bor or trade who is not in good standing in his Un- 
ion. Suppose further that the Unions have fallen 
under the control of corrupt and unscrupulous men 
who have caused the terms and conditions of mem- 
bership to be such that no man can subscribe to them 
without surrendering his manhood, and no Christian 
man without denying his Lord. You can easily im- 
agine the terrible conditions that would result. The 
best and bravest men of every community would be- 



Judgments 153 



come the outcasts and Pariahs of society and they 
and their families would soon be suffering from 
hunger and cold and nakedness. A division of opin- 
ion would then arise within the Unions. Some 
would say "Our Unions were never founded for 
such a purpose as this. We entered them because we 
believed that they would promote the best interests 
of the working classes and in the end the welfare and 
happiness of all the people. If we cannot persuade 
these good people to join us let us at least provide 
for their relief." But the majority say "No! that 
would be giving up the principles for which we are 
contending. If people are so cantankerous that they 
will not join our Unions, let them starve!" And so 
they proceed to more extreme measures. Many are 
arrested and cast into prison and even put to death 
if they will not yield. And now the friendly ele- 
ments in the Unions become more active. They not 
only continue their protest against the policy of the 
majority, but braving the displeasure of those in 
control and with much sacrifice to themselves they 
go about ministering to the wants of the needy, sup- 
plying them with food and clothing, visiting those 
who are in prison and speaking to them words of 
kindness and cheer. So the years pass on. One 
morning there is a bright illumination in the sky. 
It soon appears that it is caused by a vast concourse 
of shining angels who are winging their way to the 
Capital of the country. Here a great White Throne 
is erected and One surpassing all the rest in majesty 
and glory is seated upon it, and the entire population 
of the country is gathered before Him. Angels are 



154 The Time of the End 

flying about separating them into two companies and 
assigning places to each one as the Judge gives the 
signal. It is seen that the division is about the same 
as in former days. The King then turns to those on 
His right hand and says "Come ye blessed of my 
Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from 
the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and 
ye gave me food ; was naked and ye clothed me ; was 
sick and in prison and ye came unto me." Aston- 
ished beyond measure they cry out "Lord we never 
saw thee before and how could we have fed thee or 
visited thee in prison?" "Inasmuch as ye have done 
it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have 
done it unto me!" And as He speaks faces of old 
friends to whom they had been so kind in their time 
of distress appear all around the Throne. Sternly 
then the King turns to those upon the left hand — 
"Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire 
prepared for the Devil and his angels. I was hun- 
gry and ye gave me no food ; naked and ye clothed 
me not; sick and in prison and ye visited me not." 
"How and when was that?" they cry out in alarm 
"Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of 
these my brethren ye did it not unto me." And 
now with consternation and terror they too behold 
the faces of those whom they once despised and neg- 
lected and abused, some of whom they imprisoned 
and tortured and beheaded, and they fall lifeless to 
the ground slain by the breath of the Son of God. 
Angels gather them and carry them to their doom. 
It is unnecessary for me to say that I have no in- 
tention in the use of this Parable of casting any re- 



Judgments 155 



flections upon the Labor Unions of which for the 
most part I heartily approve. I only wished to 
draw a picture that many people could understand 
of conditions that will prevail in some countries at 
least, under the reign of the Antichrist, and to show 
that the decisions of this great Judgment Day are 
fair and right. 

5. The Judgment of Satan. 

I have already made all the comments on this sub- 
ject that are necessary and will only quote the lan- 
guage of the Prophecy itself. 

"And I saw an angel coming down out of Heaven 
having the key of the Abyss and a great chain in his 
hand. And he laid hold of the Dragon that old ser- 
pent which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him 
for a thousand years and cast him into the Abyss 
and shut it and sealed it over him, that he should 
deceive the nations no more until the thousand years 
are finished." (Rev. 20:1-3). 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE FIRST RESURRECTION 

AND I saw thrones and they sat on them; and 
judgment was given unto them ; and I saw the 
souls of them that had been beheaded for the 
testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and 
such as worshipped not the Beast neither his image, 
and received not his Mark upon their forehead and 
upon their hand ; and they lived and reigned with 
Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead lived 
not until the thousand years should be finished. 
This is the First Resurrection. Blessed and holy is 
he that hath a part in the First Resurrection. On 
such the Second Death hath no power; but they 
shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign 
with Him a thousand years." Revelation 20:4-6. 

The Doctrine of the Resurrection is the most 
mysterious and difficult in the whole range of Chris- 
tian Theology. Some of the deepest and most com- 
plicated problems that have ever occupied the hu- 
man mind are connected with it. To deal ade- 
quately with all these problems even if any man were 
capable of doing so would require an extensive 
treatise. I can only touch the surface of some of 
the deeper problems and will give my attention 
chiefly in this chapter to questions of Interpretation 
which are intricate and difficult enough as every 
student of Scripture is aware. 

156 



The First Resurrection 157 

1. Is the Resurrection described by Paul in 1 
Corinthians 15th and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 the 
same as the First Resurrection of the Revelation? 
There are some reasons for thinking it is. In both 
Epistles Paul is speaking of the Resurrection of Be- 
lievers — of those who "sleep in Jesus" and of no 
others, and he says that it takes place at the Com- 
ing of Christ. On the other hand all the dead in 
Christ are raised according to Paul while the First 
Resurrection is limited. Paul also tells us that the 
Living are changed, while no mention is made of 
this in the account of the First Resurrection. Jesus 
says that in the Resurrection they neither marry nor 
are given in marriage but are like the angels of God. 
If all believers, or even all the choicest Christians 
were suddenly transformed at the very dawn of the 
Millennium and taken out of the class of possi- 
ble fathers and mothers where would be the promise 
of the new and splendid Race that is to people the 
earth? In the clear air of Colorado two mountain 
peaks that are really miles apart may seem as one, 
and both may seem quite near. So Paul seems to 
have viewed the Two Resurrections as one and to 
have included in his description features peculiar to 
each. But John from a nearer point of view dis- 
tinguishes Two Resurrections, the First at the Ap- 
pearing of Christ, but more limited than that de- 
scribed by Paul, and the Second or the General 
Resurrection a thousand years later. "The rest of 
the dead lived not until the thousand years are fin- 
ished. This is the First Resurrection." 

2. Who are Raised in the First Resurrection? 



158 The Time of the End 

The Martyrs of the Great Tribulation. But not 
these alone although they are pointed out as specially 
prominent. John also mentions here those who re- 
fused to worship the Beast or to receive his Mark in 
their foreheads or their hands; and in Revelation 
3:21 the "Over comers" of an earlier period are in- 
cluded, for to them the Promise is given, "To him 
that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my 
throne even as I also overcame and am set down 
with my Father in His throne." Jesus also gave a 
similar promise to the Twelve Apostles. "Verily I 
say unto you, ye who have followed me, — in the 
Regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit on the 
throne of His glory, ye also shall sit on twelve 
thrones judging the twelve Tribes of Israel." I 
think then we are warranted in saying that the vic- 
torious of every age, those who on earth "followed 
the Lamb whithersoever He goeth," those who were 
called to the Marriage Supper, in short all who are 
of the Bride, will have a part in the First Resurrec- 
tion. 

3. The First Resurrection is the final Demonstra- 
tion of the assured triumph of all who are victorious 
in the great battle of life and who follow Christ 
faithfully to the end even though it be to a martyr's 
death. John gives us two Companion-pictures of 
these victorious saints and hero-martyrs of earth. 
First we see them in Heaven — a great company 
which no man can number clothed in white robes 
and palms in their hands ; the next is the same com- 
pany triumphant on earth; — here where they strug- 
gled and toiled and endured shame, reproach and 



The First Resurrection 159 

cruel wrong, at last they are honored and exalted. 
Rising from the dead, resplendent as the sun, in im- 
mortal beauty and glory, they are enthroned beside 
their King, as a holy priesthood unto God to Reign 
with Him for a thousand years. 

"Thy saints in all this glorious war 
Shall conquer though they die. 
They see the triumph from afar 
And seize it with their eye." 

4. The Real Meaning and Purpose of what we 
call the Resurrection of the Body is also revealed to 
us in the First Resurrection. 

In Paul's day the most perplexing question to the 
inquiring mind was How are the Dead raised up 
and in what Body do they come? In our day there 
is another question equally perplexing. Why are 
the dead raised? What is the Resurrection for? 
Some think there is no possible answer to this ques- 
tion except in the denial of the essential immortality 
of the Spirit of man. According to this theory the 
human spirit passes into a state of unconsciousness 
and of practical non-existence at death from which 
it is awakened at the Resurrection, clothed again in 
its transformed body, and endowed with immortal- 
ity as the gift of God. But this cannot be true of 
those who are raised in the First Resurrection for 
they have already been shown to us in Heaven — 
very much alive, marching in triumphal procession 
along the gold-paved streets and singing their songs 
of victory and joy. 



160 The Time of the End 

Then there are others who think that when the 
Christian dies he passes at once to Heaven as a dis- 
embodied spirit and that at some future time he 
must be brought back to earth for a brief moment, 
that the Body in which he used to live may be raised 
from the grave and transformed into a Spiritual 
Body into which his spirit enters again. And this, 
in order that he may be "made complete," for his 
eternal life in Heaven. Paul evidently did not have 
this conception. He said to "Depart and be with 
Christ is far better" — "not that we would be un- 
clothed, but clothed upon that Mortality might be 
swallowed up of life." "We know that if our earth- 
ly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have 
a Building of God a House not made with hands, 
eternal, in the Heavens." I understand by these 
teachings that the Body is but a Tent, a temporary 
lodging place for the immortal Spirit and when the 
tent is taken down, when the spirit is loosed from 
the body it has a House to live in, a permanent 
abode, in other words a Spiritual Body. "How are 
the dead raised up and in what Body do they come!" 
In a body, Paul says, that resembles the natural 
body which they left behind them as the growing 
plant resembles the hard dry grain that was cast into 
the earth. "It was sown a Natural Body, it is raised 
a Spiritual Body." 

Is there then to be no Resurrection of the Body? 
Do the Saints returning to earth have no part in 
what we call a Physical Resurrection? I believe 
that they do. Having been already clothed upon 
with the House from Heaven they need to be fur- 



The First Resurrection 161 

ther clothed with the Earthly House, not to fit them 
more completely for the Heavenly life, but to fit 
them for their life on earth that they may be able to 
mingle in familiar and friendly intercourse with 
those whom we call the living. This however, will 
not be the old body of flesh and blood in which they 
used to dwell, but the old body transformed into 
the likeness of the glorified Body of Jesus Christ. 
Such a change as this, however, is nowhere directly 
affirmed in the Scripture, although it is implied in 
some of the teachings of the New Testament. In 
all the prophecies and in all the accounts of the Res- 
urrection two things are emphasized. ist. The 
mysterious and wonderful change that shall take 
place in the Bodies of the Living when the last 
enemy Death is abolished, and 2d and chiefly the 
Return of the Dead in Christ with their Lord, to 
live with men in the life of this earth. It is my be- 
lief that the Book of the Revelation teaches that the 
Saints of God returning with Christ and Risen with 
Him will thus reside among us here on this earth for 
a thousand years, and then after the Second Resur- 
rection all the Redeemed will thereafter be able to 
live at will, either in the Heaven that is above, or 
the Heaven that has descended to earth, throughout 
the Eternal Ages. 

5. The First Resurrection therefore is the Time 
of the Manifestation of the Sons of God. "If we 
believe that Jesus died and rose again even so them 
that sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." ''For 
I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are 
not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall 



1 62 The Time of the End 

be revealed in us. For the Creation was made sub- 
ject to vanity not of its own will but by reason of 
him who subjected it; in hope that the Creation it- 
self shall be delivered from the bondage of corrup- 
tion into the liberty of the Glory of the Children 
of God. For we know that the whole crea- 
tion groaneth and travaileth in pain together 
until now. And not only so but we ourselves also 
who have the first fruits of the Spirit even we our- 
selves groan within ourselves waiting for our Adop- 
tion namely the redemption of our body. When 
Christ who is our life is manifested, then shall ye 
also with Him be manifested in glory. Then shall 
the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom 
of their Father." "They that be wise shall shine as 
the brightness of the firmament and they that turn 
many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever." 

Conclusion 

Jan. ist, igi8. 

The preceding chapters of this book were written 
in September and October, 191 7. In the meantime 
among the many happenings of world wide interest 
nothing has occurred to modify in any considerable 
degree the forecasts already made. The develop- 
ments in Russia only serve to emphasize the Inter- 
pretations of the Vision of the Fifth Trumpet given 
in the Second Chapter. It is also becoming appar- 
ent that a far more ambitious program than the So- 
cialization of Russia is contemplated. European So- 
cialists are laying their plans for the establishment 



Conclusion 163 



of a great Socialistic Empire or State which shall in- 
clude at least a large part of Europe and Eastern 
Asia and if possible shall be extended over all the 
earth. As a student of prophecy I am convinced 
that this program will be carried out at least in the 
territory I have already described — "Middle Eu- 
rope," including the Balkan States, Russia and 
Asiatic Turkey. I hope and believe that there will 
be an interval of several years before any bloody rev- 
olutions begin, to give time for the healing of the 
wounds of this terrible war, and for the great under- 
taking of the Church to complete the evangelization 
of the world. 

The most significant event of the past few months 
from the prophetic standpoint has been the occupa- 
ton of Jerusalem by the British forces. The student 
of prophecy can scarcely have failed to re-read with 
fresh interest the story as related in the nth Chap- 
ter of Daniel. The military operations of the Al- 
lies in Eastern Asia were very largely abortive as 
might have been expected, until they proceeded 
along the prophetic lines — a Northward drive from 
Egypt as a base with Palestine as the chief objective 
(verses 25 and 40). I am not sure that we have 
the clear word of prophecy for this statement, but 
I am of the opinion that the Holy Land once in the 
possession of the Allies is to remain under their con- 
trol for many years and to become a flourishing 
Jewish Republic. But about 1962 the Turks with 
their confederates will sweep down from the North 
with overwhelming force overrunning not Palestine 
alone but Egypt and other parts of Africa also 



164 The Time of the End 

(Daniel 11:40-45). Antichrist will then set up 
His throne at Jerusalem, sitting as a god in the 
Holy Place of the Temple and demanding the wor- 
ship of all mankind. This will continue for three 
and a half years (Rev. 11:2) when he "shall come 
to his end and there shall be none to help" (Daniel 
11:45. See also 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4 and 8 and 
Rev. 19:20). 

The writer of these pages can scarcely expect that 
every reader will agree with him in all his conclu- 
sions or interpretations of the Prophetic Word. But 
he does expect that nearly every one will share with 
him the conviction that we are indeed living in a 
"grand and awful time." The period, say of a half 
century upon which we entered in August, 1914, 
is the culmination of all the ages, when the mighti- 
est forces of good and evil of light and darkness, of 
Heaven and Hell, that have been gathering strength 
through all the ages of the past meet and clash and 
break against each other. And out of the storm and 
stress comes the clear ringing message "Jesus Christ 
must reign!" "Crowns and thrones may perish." 
Autocracies and Aristocracies may be cast down, the 
world may be "made safe for Democracy" every- 
where, but that is not enough, Jesus Christ must 
reign! Babylon may fall, Socialism may have its 
innings, but that is only a step and a perilous one in- 
deed. The Jews may return to their own land, and 
accepting Christ as their Messiah may become a 
mighty Christian nation, but that is only a step — 
the world may be evangelized and millions may be 
converted to God, but even that is only a step 



Conclusion 165 



toward the goal. "He must reign until He has put 
all enemies under His feet!" 

With this cry there comes a most urgent Call to 
the people of God. So desperate is the conflict, so 
tremendous is the task that lies before them, that 
the ordinary Christian, the well-meaning believer 
who is chiefly interested in the saving of his own 
soul will count for very little. The loud and per- 
sistent call in this great crisis of human history is 
for consecrated manhood and womanhood — for 
those who give the last full measure of their devo- 
tion to Christ and His Kingdom even as men and 
women are now giving their full measure of devo- 
tion to country and humanity. "The latest bulletin 
on the bulletin board of Prophecy" the vision of thr 
Angel ascending from the sun-rising with the Seal 
of the living God in his hand voices this call as he 
cries aloud "Hurt not the earth neither the trees 
until we have sealed the servants of God in their 
foreheads." Those who are thus sealed will consti- 
tute the Bride. Suffering with him, toiling and 
striving by His side, they shall also share in his tri- 
umph and his joy. "Jesus Christ shall reign!" is a 
motto incomplete. Rather we should say Jesus 
Christ and His Bride shall reign through the count- 
less ages! This is the great Message of the Book of 
the Revelation. 



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